Blog interviews the Kitchen Armadillo

Today Blog is back with one of his spectacularly exclusive interviews (spectacularly exclusive because no one else on the planet even believes his interviewees are for real). So, without further adieu, meet the newest member of our household: the Kitchen Armadillo!

Blog: And after all, what kitchen is complete without an armadillo?

K.A.: Where I come from, not a one, Senor Blog!

Blog: And tell us where you do hail from, Kitchen Armadillo.

K.A.: From the Great Southwest, Blog…Route 66!

Blog: A plastic armadillo bank from Route 66, imagine that.

K.A.: Boy howdy, not the tiniest speck of irony there, that’s a fact. Anyway, I was bought from one of them dandy gift shops that flank the Mother Road, by Diana’s daughter Katie.

Blog: Ah yes…we heard all about that 4,500-mile trek o’ fun that Katie enjoyed with her boyfriend, Chris. I’m sure she felt you’d be a fine thank-you gift for Momzi and Davie, in return for their catsitting services.

K.A.: Me ‘n’ some fine Route 66 coffee, I hear tell. Anyway, I was chose outta all them fine rememberances like tomahawks ‘n’ arrowheads ‘n’ even the plastic dinosaurs with their fancy hand painting ‘n’ pointy teeth. And the rubber snakes, of course. Yer rubber snakes are as plenty-full on the Six-Six as squished skeeters on a windshield.

Blog: Swell. And you were well received, I take it, having been placed in the kitchen right next to our long-loved Kitchen Lion.

K.A.: Yeppers, right there on the toaster oven and proud to be there. And contrary to the belief of one Mister Professor Sno W. Caps and all his puffery, it ain’t so bad being atop that toaster oven. Ain’t no hotter than the New Mexico desert on a fine July day, I’ll tell the world.

Blog: Beware of melty paws, Kitchen Armadillo.

K.A.: We armadillos are melty resistant, Blog. Gotta be.

Blog: I’m sure. So, do you miss Route 66?

K.A.: A bit, a bit, I’ll admit to it. But at the same time, I was always a small duck in a big pond out there, if you get my meanin’. Awful lotta big stuff on Route 66, makes a regular-sized critter like me feel as ordinary as a sneeze in a dust storm.

Blog: We did see some of Katie’s photos from the trip, and you’re right about that, Kitchen Armadillo. Like that monster blue whale!

K.A.: That’s a big one! That’s a mighty big one! Makes me want to ball right up in a ball, seeing that pitchur!

Blog: Well, if I weren’t non-corporeal, I’d be tempted to ball up too.

K.A.: So you see how a critter’d get one of them im-feely-orietty complexes! Everybody and his cousin Slim hops off the highway to see that big thing. But put a plastic armadillo bank on the side o’ the road and them cars just zip on by.

Blog: I see what you mean.

K.A.: Don’t have to be a big critter, either. Just make some big thing and out come the cam’ras. Like them big ole arrows. Arrow can’t hop or roar or even ball up like an armadillo, but make it big enough and you got yourself a spot on the map, Senor Blog.

Blog: So you’re saying size matters.

K.A.: Oh yeah, on the Mother Road it do. Not so much about the HO trains and dollhouses there, Bucko. Teeny tiny maybe they got out East, but on 66, that stuff is as rare as pink on a mule deer.

Blog: I confess I kind of like the dinosaurs.

K.A.: You ‘n’ every pole cat from Delaware! Dinos, dinos, everybody wants to see the dinos! Even worse since ’85.

Blog: What happened in ’85?

K.A.: That movie with that runty bow-tied critter. Pee Wee Herman. Big splash for the big dinosaurs on Route 66. If I had a grub for every time some tourist said “Large Marge sent me,” well, you could call ME Large Marge.

Blog: Well, it seems to me this is a bit of a sore spot. Might be better to look to the future. I’m sure you’ll be getting a fresh start in the kitchen, and you can be sure there’s nothing huge living in there.

K.A.: Ya know, that’s been real refreshin’. The Kitchen Lion’s mighty small for a lion, and Proff Snowcaps ain’t real big for a snowman neither. Not that I ever seen a snowman or snow in the part of the Road where I lived.

Blog: Oh, it’s coming, don’t you worry.

K.A.: And them three cats are pretty much cat-sized. I like cats. They know how to ball up, which is a skill I believe all fine animules oughta know.

Blog: I’m thinking that pointing out how it’s impossible for a molded plastic armadillo to ball up might be a mistake…

K.A.: What’s that you say, Blog?

Blog: Not a thing. So, have you and the Kitchen Lion found some things in common, sitting there together on the toaster oven?

K.A.: Well, we did find out we both started out in a big ole bin o’ other lions or armadillos. The gift shop scene. Both been pawed over by young’uns with hands all sticky from eatin’ peanut butter cups in the car. Both been on the bottom of the pile, both been on the top. Both got similar phil-oserfies about life.

Blog: Really? What’s your philosophy about life?

K.A.: Life is like a big ole bin o’ plastic souvenirs: if a sticky-fingered kid don’t pick you out today, just ball up and wait fer tomorrow.

Blog: Profound, Kitchen Armadillo, very profound.

K.A.: Oh, I got more profoundities than the Mother Road got giant dinos, Senor.

Blog: Well, welcome to the family, and keep those paws safe.