“And I tell ya ... the next trail drive I sign onto, I’m readin’ the fine print!”

Where parakeets come from

Seymour Frishberg: Accountant of the Wild Frontier

Testing whether or not rhinos land on their feet.

“Oh, wonderful! Look at this, Etta—another mouth to feed.”

Primitive fraternities

“So! Planning on roaming the neighborhood with some of your buddies today?”

“Oh my God, Rogers! … Is that? … Is that? … It is! It’s the MUMMY’S PURSE!”

“Uh-oh—looks like the zipper has stuck on that thing again.”

Only Bernard, in the front row, had the nerve to laugh at Death.

While his parents beamed, little Tommy Lundquist, future developer, surveyed the view from his newly constructed treehouse.

“Okay, before you go, let me read this one more time: ‘Burn the houses, eliminate the townsfolk, destroy the crops, plunder their gold!’… You knuckleheads think you can handle all that?”

“Again? Oh, all right. … One warm, summer evening many years ago, I was basking on a stretch of Interstate 95 not far from here …”

Protozoan gossip

“Hey! I think I’m getting Orange Crush over here.”

“Bootsy! … Booooooootsy! … We are calling you from the world of the living! … Meowwww! … Are you there, Bootsy? … Give us a sign!”

“Boy, everyone’s really out wandering the streets tonight. … I tell you, Charles, we’re getting to be real home zombies.”

And then, just as he predicted, Thag became the spiritual channeler for a two-million-year-old gibbon named Gus.

“So … you must be the one they call Mr. Long.”