So I was hanging out by the lake today. It's just something I like to do, you know? I like to sit on the slope of the bank and just watch everything move and live around me.

Anyway, I'm sitting there on the bank and I'm watching an egret stalk god knows what in the water, when I notice something in the water right by shore.

It's brownish-grey and fuzzy and not moving. The first thing that I think is something horrible happened to my little rebel duck and I have found him. Of course, that was completely irrational as this thing in the water didn't even resemble a duck, but my mind runs amuck sometimes.

I'm staring at this thing, trying to figure out what it is. I'm pretty positive it was some kind of animal, but no matter how hard I thought, I couldn't imagine what it could be. Every possibility was gruesome and I ended up feeling very, very sad for this poor creature sinking into the lake muck.

Then I thought, it kinda looks like a baby armadillo. Sorta. Or maybe one of the geese has a nest and a gosling hatched out all deformed. It happens you know.

Here is where I came very close to crying.

I almost decided to poke it w/a stick to see if I moved it, I could tell what it was.

Then I realized that that was very disrespectful and got mad at myself.

Then I noticed that there were no little minnows swimming around the creature and don't minnows usually flock to dead flotsam?

Then I noticed a little tag reading "Ty" attached to the creature.

Then I poked it w/a stick.

It was a walrus.

A little toy plush walrus that some child had thrown into the storm sewer.

I cannot even begin to describe how happy this find made me.

A walrus!

So I grabbed it out of the water and ran into the house to show my dad.

"Look what I found!" I said.

"What the hell is that, Molly?" he said.

"A walrus!" I replied. "I found him in the lake!"

"Put that thing in the garage. I can smell it from over here."

So I ran to the garage and tossed the walrus into the washing machine for a little TLC. Some very bleachy and disinfecting TLC. When he was done, I took him out and he was seriously good as new. You can't even tell that I found him in a lake.

I have decided to name him Dirk. The name on his tag says "Jolly" but what kind of stupid fucking name is "Jolly"? He's a walrus! Not some goddamn dwarf. Christ.

I didn't get a chance to show my mom, so when I got home at midnight, I put Dirk on a piece of paper and wrote the following:

"(arrow pointing to the walrus) I found this in the lake! Don't worry, I have washed him. His name is Dirk."

Hopefully, she'll realize the coolness of this. I mean, how can she not? This fucking rocks, man. I found a walrus.

Yep. Highlight of my day. Right there.

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