Experience

A bunch of us were chewin' the cud, down by the waterhole. Not all of us were ruminants, so that isn't strictly accurate. But for vegetarians, I think the figure of speech works better with "cud" than with "fat." "Suckin' down the H2O" is too literal. Anyway, we were talking about the up-coming election.

"What I want to know," said Julie, "is why it always has to be a Sabertooth? Why not, oh, a Mammoth, once in a while?"

Clyde shook his ponderous head. "Uh-uh," he replied. "Notorious for their woolly thinking."

"Now, I take exception to that," I interjected, sticking up for my species. "But let's set it aside for the moment. Julie's got a point. If you don't like Mammoths, how about a nice Mastodon? One of your lot. Vote Prey, I say."

"Good slogan," lowed Julie bisonically.

Clyde shook his head slowly again. "It isn't a partisan matter, Predator Party vs. Prey Party. It's a question of experience. The Prey candidate just doesn't have the ... the necessities to be King."

"Oh, yeah?" I countered. "Like what?"

"Like I said," said Clyde. "Experience. He hasn't been through the life and death decisions required of a King in these trying times."

"Other than fighting off a pack of ravening Sabertooths, you mean," observed Julie, snidely. "Saberteeth. Teeths. Um, whatever."

"Different kinda thing," observed Clyde, sagely. "Personal survival is one thing. We're talking about decisions affecting multitudes of our fellow beasts, both Predator and Prey."

"Yeah, let's talk about that," I suggested. "Who got us into this sticky mess to begin with? King Smiley himself, that's who! So he got his vaunted 'experience' by screwing up royally. So, that's experience in failure created by willful incompetence, evil intentions, or (more likely) both. Too bad we didn't insist on 'experience' before the fact, huh?"

"Nobody could've foreseen what has happened," opined Clyde.

"Oh, really?" I huffed.

"Now, Joe," soothed Julie, "we know this is a huge cock-up ... well, most of us, at any rate ... but we can't just pull out now, you know."

"Oh, and why not?" I persisted. "When you dig yourself a nice mud hole, and it seems to be getting a little too deep, the first think you do is stop shoveling, right? Well, I guess you don't do mud holes, but Clyde will understand the analogy."

"It's too complicated now," said Julie.

"Too many have died," added Clyde. "It would make it seem as though they died for nothing."

"So, let's add a few hundred more, and that will make it all right?" I suggested. "They have died for nothing. Why compound the crime?"

"Don't tell me!" Clyde looked shocked. "You don't support our tar divers!"

I sighed. "By your logic, if I send Julie into a Sabertooth ambush, I'm supporting her, but if you stop her from going, you are betraying her. Did I get that right? Listen to yourself. That's Smiley talking. When did he ever tell you anything but lies?"

"But he's our King," argued Julie.

"Criminally insane is what he is," I replied.

"We have to believe him," she continued.

"Not when he's lying," I countered. "Which is always."

"But he has more information than we do," she insisted. "If he thinks there's treasure in the tar pit, he must have some basis for it. He has so much experience."

"What he has," I replied, "is experience sending us to die in a whacking great tar pit for no discernible reason. If that's experience, we need someone without so much bloody experience. We need someone who can look at all those creatures marching off to a tarry grave and think, 'Bad fuckin' idea!' I'm voting for the Prey candidate."

Clyde nodded thoughtfully. "Something to think about," he said. "If the guy just weren't so inexperienced ..."