Happy Fatherhood Friday everyone. This is the second in a series of entries chronicling the adventures of George and the Man in the Yellow Hat as they journey back to the jungle where they first met. Along the way they may run into a few familiar faces. If you missed the first part, you can read it here. And if you have a little more time check out some of the other great posts at Dad Blogs including my latest column entry.



“Wait, explain this again. what are you and what are you doing here?” asked the Man in the Yellow Hat, absently playing with the tray table latch.

“I’m a rabbit, and my Dad and I go all around the country visiting people of different cultures and such,” replied Buster, pausing to take a sip from his plastic cup. “Dad’s a pilot and we normally are flying this random band with an unpronounceable name on their world tour, but Dad said because of some ‘incident’ with Mexican Federal Police we had to fly normal planes for awhile.”

The Man in the Yellow Hat scratched his chin. “Ok, so you’re a rabbit – that seems fairly obvious. Let’s put aside for a second that rather than living out your life in a wooden hutch munching hay in someone’s backyard you can talk, walk upright and wear pants. But your Dad is just a normal guy wearing rabbit ears, right? I mean, you guys really don’t look at all alike. And what about your friend…what did you say his name was?” he asked.

“This is Arthur. He’s a muskrat,” Buster said.

“I am not, I’m an aardvark! How long have we been friends?” interjected Arthur, his face twisted in disbelief. The two started squabbling. The Man in the Yellow Hat sighed, pulled out his clashing iPod Nano (despite repeated requests, Apple would not create a canary colored one, only goldenrod), dialed up the soundtrack to the Jungle Book and tried to drift off to sleep. With luck this would be a short and uneventful plane ride.

Down below in the cargo hold, George sat with his arms and legs folded in frustration. FAA regulations don’t allow for monkeys in the main cabin area, and so at the last minute George ended up here, locked in an oversized dog carrier. He had amused himself the first part of the trip with a “magical pocket sun” the Man in the Yellow Hat had given him until he realized it was just a flashlight. Now he was hungry – he had seen the Man in the Yellow Hat stuffing MonkeySnacks into his suitcase before they had left. They had to be around here somewhere, he thought.

The dog carrier was designed to keep dogs in, not monkeys with opposable thumbs. It took him a few tries, but George was able to get the door unlatched and it swung open. He stepped out into the cargo hold and looked around. He was surrounded by suitcases and bags of all shapes and colors – they all looked a lot like the suitcase the Man in the Yellow Hat had packed his snacks in. George would have to go through each of them to find it.

He scampered over to the nearest suitcase and tore it open using his secret monkey claws. George looked inside and pulled out fuzzy pink bracelets connected by a chain and a stick that he remembered the farmer using to make the horses go faster. The farmer must be on the plane, he thought – this wasn’t the right bag. He jumped to the next box which was already partially open. Inside this box was hundreds of rubber snakes. Snakes on a plane, George mused. How predictable.

This was going to take forever – there were just too many. There must be someway to move all of these suitcases quickly so he could spot the one he was looking for. He looked around, uttering quizzical monkey noises to no one in particular. He spotted a big red button on the wall. George remembered the button in the cider mill that he had pressed secretly trying to kill a squirrel hellbent on eating his apple and instead inadvertently bottled several hundred gallons of monkey-tainted cider that later poisoned several thousand unsuspecting consumers.

Maybe this button will be equally as fun, thought George. He gingerly pushed the button and a green button next to it started to blink. Hmm, George thought. He reached and pushed the blinking button. Suddenly, the back of the room disappeared, and all the suitcases started moving backward and disappearing too! George quickly resorted to his first inclination in these situations – jumping up and down and shouting “Haiiiiiii!” over and over.

This is usually when the Man in the Yellow Hat arrived and saved the day with a reassuring pat on the head., George thought. Where was he? Almost all the suitcases were gone, and he had to hold onto the wall to keep from disappearing himself. Then a side door opened, and a Man With A Pissed Off Expression appeared.

“Yikes!” he said, slapping the red button George had hit before. The back of the room slowly reappeared. George was relieved, and ran over to the Man With a Pissed Off Expression and held tightly to his leg. “Uh-oh” thought George. In all the excitement he had inadvertently soaked the man’s leg. He looked up with an embarrassed grin.

The Man with Pissed Off Expression looked down and scowled. “Why doesn’t this monkey have a damn diaper on?” he asked.

Up in the passenger cabin, the turbulence caused by George’s misadventure had caused pandemonium. The Man in the Yellow Hat had been jolted out of his slumber by the shaking plane amidst the other passengers screaming, praying, and Buster’s Dad yelling about a drunken rendezvous with a rabbit in college while holding a fake pair of bunny ears in his hands. Despite what at the time seemed like imminent death, the Man in the Yellow Hat still found himself smirking a little. After the flight settled and the panic had abated, the captain’s voice came over the loudspeaker.

“Sorry for the bumpy ride ladies and gentleman. We’re going to have to make an unscheduled landing here in just a minute. Apparently a monkey just jettisoned all of your luggage over the Isle of Sodor…”

“GEORGE!” the Man in the Yellow Hat, now oblivious to Buster’s hysterical crying.

- MWF -