A Hippo Happening

The Lazarus Motel had remained in the family for three generations. While its looks had faded, it was impeccably clean and often full. Sarah Lazarus, the newest full-time manager, had only just turned off the blue NO VACANCY sign when a beat up minivan drove in from the snow.

She did a double take. The minivan looked eerily familiar. The broken left hubcap. The right headlight that was dimmer than the rest. The fuzzy purple dice that hung off the mirror. It was unmistakable. But what was it doing at her hotel, at this hour?

Her cousin had always had questionable taste, but Doreen was the worst of of his never-ending collection of ladyfriends. Her minivan could only mean one thing-her cousin had returned. And was likely looking to talk to her about what happened the night he left town.

He tore out of town under a cloud leaving a twisted trail of clues of the evening’s indiscretions in her van — the tangle of jumper cables, the suspicious carpet stain in the payload, crumbled Ring-Ding wrappings, the deep claw marks. This man was doubtless cursed with demons.

And clearly, one of those demons materialized - how that mama bear found her way into the minivan was anyone’s guess. The previous occupant’s shenanigans culminated with a frantic free for all! Thank God no one got hurt.

And who would have guessed that a thousand pound grizzly bear would be so proficient at parallel parking a minivan ?

He was very happy to be down to a thousand pounds. He has been doing paleo and working out, to drop his weight from two thousand pounds. He is proud of his achievements, without that dedication he would have never been able to fit into the minivan.

But fit in the minivan he did. Cristobal the domesticated hippo was firmly strapped in beside his surrogate mother Connie and on their way to Six Flags for his third birthday when the memory of his real mother flashed before his eyes

She was a fat, lumpy vision of a hippo, with the biggest heart in the savannah. One minute she was wallowing in a mud flat; the next she was flat on her back, tranquilized by a team of animal control officers who considered her habit of snacking on wildlife photographers a crime!

She woke up in a twin bed in a familiar yet depressing room. The walls were beige and the art was nondescript. Her hippo body felt different, and she looked down to find hairy human legs. She rolled over in bed to read the stationery sitting beside her: “The Lazarus Motel.”