The Mermaid and the Sailor

The beautiful mermaid sat on a sea-splashed rock combing her unruly tempest of golden hair with a tortoise shell comb. While so occupied she whistled a medley of snappy tunes from the Boston hit show “Glamour Galore.” After a while, having worked her hair into a satisfactory froth she sighed with satisfaction, put aside her comb and donned a pair of sunglasses bejeweled with pearls and rhinestones. Out of the blue flew a scruffy looking black cormorant who laid a gushy turd smack dab onto the glistening shoulder of the lovely naiad. “ARRRGH! Two can play at this game!” The mermaid screeched at the bird as she grabbed a tissue from her fishnet purse and removed the offending guano. Then she fished about in the depths of her bag and came up with a cocked and loaded colt .45 revolver. She took aim at the offending cormorant, who with foolish arrogance had perched on a nearby rock spreading its diabolically shaped wings - an easy target even for a mermaid. “Mess with me and die devil bird!” screamed the enraged sea maiden and firing off several shots in quick succession, she let him have it. The slugs ripped through the bird’s ugly carcass spraying broken feathers like the fleeting memory of a nightmare. Then all hell broke loose! Sirens screamed from one end of the seaside resort to the other. The Coast Guard launched both of its battle-ready cruisers skimming across the bay towards the stone breakwater where the riled mermaid sat gloating at the dead cormorant. A fire truck, an ambulance and two police cars raced down Mc Millan wharf towards the ricocheting echo of the gunfire. “Oh sweet Jesus!” exclaimed the mermaid, “Wouldn’t you know it, orange alert! A girl can’t even protect herself anymore. What has this world come to? Well to hell with Homeland Security, I’m out’a here!”