Inflatable Pool Animals Fear The Approaching Fall

MAINE- It’s the month of August. The weather is getting a little cooler; less people are going out to swim. And this, at least for one community of inflatable zoo animals in Portland Maine, is not a good sign at all. “Fall is coming! I can sense it!” screamed an inflatable peacock to his human master, Frank, who was sitting on the poor flotation device in his backyard pool. “It’s coming!! Please don’t send me back to that dark, cold box!”

“148 Chestnut Street has always been a horrible place for us inflatable pool animals” a particularly large giraffe float explained, “every year, at the end of the summer, we are disemboweled of our oxygen, then we are crammed into a dusty container and left to rot in Frank’s attic for 9 months. Then the process starts all over again. And that’s if the rats don’t get to you first”.

The animals all seemed to be wary of Frank. We came to a small, wrinkled platypus float for answers: “Frank is an inflatable animal sadist.” squeaked the unsurprisingly discontinued pool toy, “ I’ve been here the longest. I’ve seen it all: Frank allowing his most violent nephews and nieces to play with us until they tear us apart, him slowly letting out our air just to make himself more comfortable. I’ve even seen the monster put poor Mrs. Elephant in a container full of bleach overnight. She screamed as she gradually dissolved over hours and hours!”

We moved on to “the master” himself to hear his side of the story: “Yeah, I torture the little fuckers. What are you going to do about it?” Frank asked bluntly. Before proceeding he took out the cigarette he was smoking and started to put it out on an inflatable flamingo hat he was wearing. “The little bastards have it coming anyway. Once or twice a year they attempt a coup d'état and try to drown me in the pool. Last time I had to rip open the throat of a perfectly new crocodile float to survive. A nasty business”.

Frank is expecting an early fall this year.