Siphonaptera & the Sublimities of Mahler

I had spent a career warming increasingly less comfortable chairs in increasingly smaller spaces for decreasingly smaller increases in pay. It was finally my time to engage in something meaningful before my eternal dirt nap.

Spouse:	Why don't you take a community ed class in oils or learn to fly fish?
Me:	Painting a vase of silk flowers or joining arthritic men jerking their rods by the Kinnickinnick River? I dunno, dear.

I opted for a matchbox full of trained circus fleas. The quarter page ad in Bug Club Magazine claimed they were trained. That should have taught me not to believe the dumb shit I find in the children's magazine rack at Miserly Clips.

Turns out, not only were the fleas in no shape to attempt death-defying trapeze artistry, but half of them were banging 7-nano-gram rocks like they'd just triple-flipped off Charlie Sheen's shiatzu.

So I did the only thing I could do. I spent the next two semesters in a metalsmithing class so I could fashion a flea-sized-symphony's worth of brass horns. Next, I suppose I'll endeavor to fabricate the stringed instruments.

But I've got to work small. Microscope small. Japanese scientists could teach me a thing or two about single-polymer chains and atomic force microscopy seeing that they're reportedly able to reel in beefy rotifers on marginally convincing protozoan imitators. Do these nano-fishermen catch and release?

Spouse:	Those tiny brass horns are the flea's knees. But how are you gonna to teach those misfits the sublimities of Mahler?
Me:	Um, if the little critters finish up the substance abuse program at Hazelden come summer, I'll ship them off to Boston. Tanglewood has a music camp for gifted siphonaptera.