Leave It to Beaver 2, A Trilogy
By Mark D. Crantz
Here’s a recap for readers who missed the first column concerning the Beaver family. The Beavers moved to Laguna Beach for a lucrative job offer in the lumber business. It was a difficult car journey from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The Beavers were lousy map readers and would get frustrated and tear the maps to smithereens. They went through one hundred and twenty sets of maps. The consequential sawdust they created lent itself to naming the Laguna Beach Sawdust Festival.
It was a heroic start. But it did not last. The Beavers soon realized they didn’t fit in Southern California because it was the land of beautiful mammals. The Beavers came up short in the beauty contest. They were buck-toothed and had flat tails. In Michigan, they fit in because everybody looked the same. Mrs. Beaver was the first to notice the difference. She told her husband, “Dear, I got a ticket on the beach today.” Mr. Beaver was concentrating on the TV. “That’s nice.” Mrs. Beaver exclaimed, “What? No, it’s not nice. I was written up because I was off leash.” Mr. Beaver continued concentrating on the TV’s water polo match. Mrs. Beaver spoke out loud more to herself than her husband. “The officer asked where I lived. I said a dam. That got me another ticket for verbally assaulting an officer of the law.” Mr. Beaver attempted to catch the drift. “What was that?” Mrs. Beaver takes a breath. “I’m not done yet. I slapped the sand hard with my tail. The sound scared the officer. That got me a third ticket for noise pollution.” Mr. Beaver looks up at his wife. “Sounds like a good day.”
No, it wasn’t a good day. But it wasn’t as bad a day as their grandparents went through. During the fur trading era, many relatives ended up as beaver hats for the wealthy. The next morning, Mrs. Beaver asked Mr. Beaver what he was going to do about all the tickets. Mr. Beaver answered with a mouthful of oak meal. “I’ll go to work at the lumberyard and gnaw on it.” Mrs. Beaver huffed, “And what am I going to do while you’re busy making particle board at the lumberyard?” Mrs. Beaver was an inpatient beaver. She would never wait for anything. For instance, Mrs. Beaver watched home do-over shows and could never wait for the final design. She would fast forward close to the end. Then she guessed every remodel ending. “They did…Open design,” she’d yell triumphantly. Mr. Beaver gulped down the last of his breakfast and burped. “I’ll think about the tickets. Remember, dams aren’t built in a day.” At that, Mr. Beaver was shown the water door without a kiss. Just a kiss off.
Mrs. Beaver wasn’t a beaver to wait around. She made an appointment to see a veterinarian specialist. The vet gave her a treat and a pat on the head. “What can I do for you today, Mrs. Beaver?” Mrs. Beaver asked, “How much do you charge to put down husbands?”
Meanwhile, Mr. Beaver hadn’t thought a whit about Mrs. Beaver’s tickets. Mr. Beaver was too worried about the lumber crew he inherited when he took the job. They were sea otters who played around all day. They didn’t have a work bone in their bodies. Mr. Beaver had to pick up the slack. His teeth hurt from doing the job of five. At this pace, he’d be gumming the wood in a vain attempt to make particle board.
However, things were looking up for Mrs. Beaver. The vet explained, “A nip here, a tuck there and all your troubles will be left behind. And good to his “Hippo”-cratic oath, Mrs. Beaver became a changed beaver. Mrs. Beaver waited for no mammal and rebuilt a dam fine specimen in a day. Mrs. Beaver underwent a Brazilian butt lift, dental implants, nose job, breast augmentation, lip enhancement, full body hair removal, botox and added one white glove for good measure.
Months later, Mrs. Beaver talked the family into their own makeovers. The beaver kids got dental implants. With new megawatt smiles, they made new friends right away. However, Mr. Beaver refused any cosmetic surgery and insisted he was perfect as is. But as a compromise, he agreed to allow the vet to change his sea otter crew into beavers. After the makeover, production quotas were met at the lumberyard. It was a sigh of relief for Mr. Beaver.
Things were looking better. Laguna Beach was a dam nice place to move to, well, at least, for now…
Crantz tells the Indy that no beavers were harmed in the writing of this column.
