(Note: this tale is not autobiographical. It is entirely fictional. Honest.)

Ambrose Pringle stared at his cursor.

The cursor blinked back, rhythmic and judgmental, waiting. It was Thursday. His weekly humour column, “Pringle’s Pieces,” was due to the Gazette by 5 p.m., or his editor, a man named Mort whose vocal cords sounded like two pieces of sandpaper rubbing together, would ensure Ambrose’s next assignment was the obituary section for local livestock.

Ambrose was desperate. He had already written about his socks, his toaster’s existential crisis, and the time he accidentally joined a synchronized swimming team for seniors. He was tapped out. The well of whimsy was bone dry.

“I need a hook,” he whispered to his black cat, Beelzebub. Beelzebub licked a paw and looked at Arthur with the profound boredom only a feline can muster. “Something relatable. Something engaging. Something … funny!”

He decided to go on a comedy hunt. He grabbed his pen and notebook and headed to the local park, convinced that human folly would present itself on a silver platter.

He sat on a bench near a duck pond. For 40 minutes, he watched a toddler try to eat a pebble while the oblivious mother yakked away on her cell. Not funny — just a choking hazard.

He watched a jogger trip over their own shoelace. Mildly amusing, but he’d used The Gravity of the Situation three weeks ago.

Then, he saw it: a man in full business suit trying to retrieve a drone from a willow tree using a baguette.

This is it, Ambrose thought, scribbling furiously: The Bread-Based Rescue Mission.

He leaned in closer to catch the dialogue.

The man was shouting, “Come on, Sheila! Daddy’s got the sourdough!”

Suddenly, a squirrel leaped from a branch and snatched Ambrose’s pen. “Hey! That’s a Montblanc!” Ambrose yelled, scrambling off the bench.

The chase was on. Ambrose, a man whose primary form of exercise was reaching for the TV remote, was now sprinting through the park, dodging frisbees and picnickers. The squirrel was nimble; Ambrose was a chaotic mess of flapping corduroy.

He cornered the rodent near the fountain. The squirrel stopped, looked Ambrose dead in the eye, and dropped the pen into the churning water. Then, it chattered what sounded suspiciously like a laugh and vanished.

Ambrose slumped against a statue of a forgotten war hero. He was sweaty, his pen was at the bottom of a murky pool of coins and algae, and he still had no column.

“I’m not putting my bare hands into that muck,” he muttered.

He pulled out his cell and dialed 911. He said he thought he was having a heart attack.

When the paramedics arrived, sirens screaming, Ambrose said he felt much better, and asked for a pair of their latex gloves. With his gloved hands, he searched the fountain basin for his sunken pen. He finally found it. 

He trudged home. He sat at his desk, opened his laptop, and realized he had 30 minutes left. He began to type.

He wrote about the baguette man. The thieving squirrel. How he spent four hours looking for “funny” only to be bullied by a creature that eats acorns for a living. He titled it: “The Squirrel Always Wins.”

He hit send at 4:59 p.m.

The next morning, his phone buzzed. It was Mort.

“Pringle,” the sandpaper voice rasped. “The squirrel piece. People love it. My wife cried laughing. You’re a genius.”

“Thanks, boss,” said Ambrose. “So, is this a good time to ask for a raise?”

“It is not,” Mort gritted and disconnected.

© Peterborough Examiner