Caterpillar Story

[Recycled from August 7th, 2004 and Januar 13th, 2005] here's a story I love to tell:

There are a lot of benefits to Waldy's friends coming and hanging out at our place. One of them is that we know where Waldy is (provided he's actually somewhere in the mix, and hasn't nicked off while his friends continue to hang out). Another is the occasional request for the caterpillar story.

It's not even my story. It's actually Joseph's story. But Kathe divorced Joseph and married me, so I guess I have some claim on the caterpillar story. Certainly it's unlikely that Joseph is going around telling the caterpillar story to his new (Joseph-and-Libby) friends. He's much too dignified for that these days.

Joseph came home from a job interview one day and wrote a note to Kathe and their housemates about the interesting time he'd had. He wrote it in the form of a children's story, with illustrations, and left it on the kitchen table. Kathe still has that sheet of paper somewhere, but she hasn't seen it in years, and doesn't know where it is. I will, as I do for the kids, attempt to paraphrase the caterpillar story as best I can remember it.

Once upon a time there was a man who wanted to get a job giving money to poor people. The man liekd poor people, and thought it would be a good idea to give them money, so he went to the place where they were interviewing people for the job.

The man who was giving the interview did not like poor people. He said, "Grind up the people on welfare into hamburger."

During the interview, the man noticed a caterpillar crawling on his boot. The interviewer told him to put the caterpillar in the wastebasket, bu the man said he would put the caterpillar on his knee until the interview was over, and then take it outside.

When the interview was over, the caterpillar was no longer on the man's knee. He looked all over the interviewer's office for it. He got down on his hands and knees looking. Soon, the man who gave the interview was also on his hands and knees trying to find the caterpillar, but they could not find it at all.

I do not know if the man got the job or not.