In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight. Of course he does. He pigged out on a fat zebra, giving the leavings to the hyenas. They would have stolen it by morning and this saved the lion’s pride. He dispised hyenas. Not because they were scavengers. There were a lot of scavengers in the jungles and savannas. He hated the constant laughing.

The lion of the mighty jungle couldn’t see the humor of life. He’d get up, take a whiz, hunt all day for some old or lame animal, kill it, eat, have a bm, go to sleep and start all over again the next day. Life was a bore. Occasionally he’d run into a lioness in the mood but that was rare as killing a ripe animal. Life was a bore.

Whether he dreamed it up or just thought it up, the lion came up with an idea to break the monotony of life. He’d find a village and scare the daylights out of the villagers. He’d walk through the village, growling and snarling, rip a hut down, kill a pig or two and, maybe, run off with a child. He could raise the child as a jungle boy. Or, he could eat him.

He came to the village at dusk. This was good. He could get in real close without anyone noticing him. Boy, what a surprise they were going to get. He started walking into the village and promptly fell in a hole. Ugh! It smells terrible down here. It smell like a savanna after a herd of elephants got into some bad stuff and all got the runs.

The lion heard the screaming and hollering about a lion in the village. He should be enjoying this. He wasn’t. He was in a sanitary pit. A sanitary pit in a jungle village? They usually just went wherever the mood struck them. When the smell got too bad they’d move the village.

The lion looked up and barely made out a face. It was a white face. This was no villager. The lion hoped it wasn’t some poaching party. Then the lion wouldn’t have to worry about what a bore life was. Life would be ending from a large bore rifle. The lion could kiss his butt goodbye.

Then the pale, white face spoke.

“Why, it’s a cat. It’s a big cat too”.

It was a Peace Corps volunteer. She had a degree in engineering. That explains the pit. Nothing could explain her next words.

“He’s stuck. We need to help him out so he can roam free as a natural creature of the wild”, she announced to the gathered villagers.

“Um, missy, he a lion. We not help him out of pit. He eat us we do”.

“Nonsense. He’d be grateful. You ever heard of the mouse who pulled a thorn out of a lion’s paw? Come on, help me, I can’t do this by myself”.

No, they hadn’t heard about the mouse who pulled a thorn out of a lion’s paw. They had heard stories about kidnapped boys being raised as jungle boys. That they’d heard of.

“Isn’t anyone going to help me? I could attach a rope to my SUV and haul him out of there but it would be so much more humane if you, the people who live with the lion everyday, would do the right thing”, she went on.

The villagers had a meeting. They decided she was right about them doing the right thing. They got the rope and the SUV. They threw the rope in and then pushed the SUV in. Then they pushed her in.

“Well, it was time for us to move along anyway”, the headman told his people.