"Doggone 'Gift' Guppies Still 'Alive And Kicking' After 18 Months, For Pete's Sake!" Says Amazed Area Man

In a shocking display of unnatural longevity not seen since the early pages of the so-called Old Testament, an area man is still religiously feeding and caring for a pair of guppies that were given as a gift by those true paragons of the Palouse, the Art and Jill Swannack family of Lamont. (talk about a family success story on almost every imaginable level!) "Well, thru some strange set of circumstances too bizarre to outline here, I became the voice of the "Penguin Puppet" at the Vacation Bible School at the local church. So, after growing into the part (and after clumsily knocking down the puppet stage at one point and botching his quite simplistic lines over and over!) I guess those well-above average Swannack kids felt sorry for me and gave me a bag of guppies (6 in total!) - thus playing on that whole 'penguins eat fish' thing. It was all very cute!" stammered the now ferociously loyal fish owner.

"Well, not being well-versed in the inner workings of our aquatic finned friends, I really didn't know what to expect!" he said. "Sadly, a couple of the poor things made kamikaze-like leaps to the great beyond and I found them all dried up and shriveled on the floor close by. And at least one or two of the 'slow learners' liked to swim near the surface where my overly involved and obviously resourceful house cats like to keep a stern and constant vigil and became tasty snacks too soon forgotten by the ungrateful felines! But of the survivors (two at this point - both males!), some sort of primitive 'survival of the fittest' regime took over and they seem to be committed to the enterprise for the long haul. Heck, they are almost like a part of the family now, doggone it! The cats almost never drink out of their water bowl now, much preferring the somewhat malodorous and often quite murky 'fishbowl water', regardless of how often I change their water dish. I think they just like to 'act' like they are drinking in order to lull an unfortunate guppy into a false sense of security and routine so that one flashing paw can have even the remotest chance of snagging one of the largely self-possessed semi-tropical swimmers. Or maybe the cats just like stinky water - who knows!" he pondered. "But who would have thought that I would have grown so attached to the little critters? I just hope they can survive thru the winter. With it being so cold and all - and the ground being harder than concrete, the very thought of me having to drag myself out into the snowy wastes to dig them proper graves just seems a little taxing at this stage. But a man has to do what a man has to do, I guess. They are my loyal guppies, for Pete's sake! How can I turn my back on them now?" he concluded with the steadfast loyalty of a well-loved Golden Retriever.