Shownotes
[18+]Todd has taken his fox boyfriend Colton home from college to spend Christmas with his big raccoon family for the first time. Todd's eldest brother Alfie is notably absent. Colton is about to get an amusing story about the start of Alfie's troubled life.
Today’s story is ““Under the Bed”” by Todd Aldrington, a self-published furry author from south-west England, best known for the Todd and Colton series of six books. You can find more of his stories on Amazon, and another holiday story, “A Christmas Reunion” available for free, on his Patreon.
Read by Dirt Coyote, from Twitter dot Com.
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https://thevoice.dog/episode/18-under-the-bed-by-todd-aldrington
Transcripts
Today's story concerns adult subject matter for mature listeners.
Speaker:If that's not your cup of tea,
Speaker:or there are youngsters listening,
Speaker:please skip this one
Speaker:and come back for another story another time.
Speaker:You’re listening to The Voice of Dog.
Speaker:This is Rob MacWolf,
Speaker:your fellow traveler,
Speaker:and Today’s story is ““Under
Speaker:the Bed”” by Todd Aldrington,
Speaker:a self-published furry author from south-west England,
Speaker:best known for the Todd and Colton series of six books.
Speaker:You can find more of his stories on Amazon,
Speaker:and another holiday story,
Speaker:“A Christmas Reunion”
Speaker:available for free, on his Patreon.
Speaker:Read by Dirt Coyote,
Speaker:from Twitter dot Com,
Speaker:Please enjoy “Under the Bed”
Speaker:by Todd Aldrington
Speaker:I went downstairs in my dressing gown
Speaker:knowing I was the last up.
Speaker:This morning I had what I called a
Speaker:‘reverse hangover’ –
Speaker:what you get when after weeks of drinking on most nights you decide to give your body a rest,
Speaker:you sleep like a rock, and your head is even
Speaker:thicker for it in the morning than usual.
Speaker:Being home in Phoenix for Christmas after two and a half years of college in New York,
Speaker:I felt like my body needed a break in more ways than just that.
Speaker:What the hell kind of breakfast was cooking down here?
Speaker:I should have been following my nose to waffles,
Speaker:sausages and bacon,
Speaker:or at least porridge if we were on a cheap breakfast day.
Speaker:We were due one,
Speaker:but I knew two things:
Speaker:Colton had added money to my family’s shopping budget this Christmas,
Speaker:and he’d gotten up already
Speaker:and done what I knew secretly made my mom
Speaker:feather-spitting jealous:
Speaker:got my entire family to production
Speaker:-line making breakfast in the kitchen with very little argument.
Speaker:Only this morning…
Speaker:‘Oh God,’ I said to Dad,
Speaker:who was keeping away from the kitchen. ‘He’s
Speaker:teaching them to make Obie’s kedgeree recipe.
Speaker:Bleeerrgh, I told them
Speaker:both I can’t bear that stuff.
Speaker:He’s been planning this since I said that.’ ‘I
Speaker:know,’ Dru said. I hadn’t
Speaker:noticed her in the living room with Freddy. ‘Fish
Speaker:for breakfast?
Speaker:Barf! Didn’t you say Obie was a red panda?
Speaker:I thought they were all vegetarian and healthy plant food and shit.
Speaker:I think Colton said he’s making me and you bacon sandwiches.’ ‘Hey
Speaker:Uncle Todd, watch this!’
Speaker:Freddy said, and proceeded to catch raisins in his mouth as Dru flicked them across the room for him.
Speaker:At least my sister was smiling this morning. ‘Drusilla,
Speaker:what have I told you about not encouraging him to play with food?’
Speaker:Mom was out of the kitchen now. ‘Jeez,
Speaker:Mom, can I breathe in this house?
Speaker:Would that be okay today?’ ‘Let
Speaker:them have their fun, Joanne,’
Speaker:Dad said. ‘His Dad’s in the hospital,
Speaker:I don’t think playing with raisins is exactly the biggest problem for him at the moment.’
Speaker:Dru put her ‘Eat shit’ smirk on. ‘I
Speaker:smelled what you were doing when I opened the window this morning, young lady.
Speaker:The day I catch you,
Speaker:it’s no more allowance
Speaker:ever.’ Dru gave her the
Speaker:‘that all you got?’
Speaker:shrug. She’d be sixteen in a few months
Speaker:and get a job anyway,
Speaker:ergo losing it regardless. ‘Well,
Speaker:you ain’t gonna, coz I don’t smoke,
Speaker:and that smell was coz the fox does.’ ‘Yes,’
Speaker:Mom said. ‘Of course it was.’
Speaker:Now Dru looked at Dad,
Speaker:and I got it: Dad had sneaked a
Speaker:breakfast cigarette that morning with my boyfriend before Mom was awake,
Speaker:Dru had been the one who caught him,
Speaker:and now she had the power.
Speaker:It didn’t matter a good goddamn, I thought.
Speaker:You never win an argument with your mother.
Speaker:Especially not if she’s Joanne
Speaker:Aldrington. You may think you have.
Speaker:You may get ‘Enjoy your moment, young man,’
Speaker:or ‘young lady’ look,
Speaker:but our mom was Vegas:
Speaker:the house always won.
Speaker:Colton, my beautiful
Speaker:full-winter-coated
Speaker:russet-red fox was spending his Christmas in a household of ten raccoons,
Speaker:and put up with the usual fox jokes
Speaker:all through breakfast,
Speaker:then Felix added to the repertoire,
Speaker:just like I’d been waiting for since he’d told me he’d seen this on the internet: ‘Hey
Speaker:C,’ he said, copying what he’d heard
Speaker:Obie call Colton during a phone call. ‘Foxes
Speaker:are from Mars.
Speaker:You know why? They’re the same colour as the martian soil,
Speaker:they travel by night like UFO’s,
Speaker:and they’re fluent in Martianese.’
Speaker:Felix put his head back
Speaker:and gave the most
Speaker:horrendous impression of an animal-fox’s
Speaker:bark-chatter. ‘Felix,’
Speaker:Dru said, ‘You sound like a
Speaker:dolphin. And do not make that noise
Speaker:ever again. Next time I won’t stick up for you when Beatrix is messing with your OCD.’
Speaker:Colton was laughing at it.
Speaker:Beatrix was still sulking after Dru had had a go at her this morning for moving the dishes and cutlery about on the table
Speaker:so Felix would keep putting them back exactly how he’d arranged them the first time.
Speaker:Much to Mom’s delight,
Speaker:table setting like this had become a daily ritual to him,
Speaker:even though the family had to watch him circle it at least a dozen times to get it right.
Speaker:It seemed harmless at first,
Speaker:but the more Mom had watched his behaviour in general,
Speaker:the more she’d realised this actually was symptomatic of OCD,
Speaker:to go with his Asperger’s.
Speaker:After a long consultation,
Speaker:Dr Comfrey had agreed on
Speaker:‘borderline and we’ll monitor.’
Speaker:Beatrix didn’t quite get why messing with it wasn’t funny yet.
Speaker:Until this morning,
Speaker:when Mom had taken Dru’s side.
Speaker:I’d never seen that
Speaker:before, in all my life.
Speaker:Mom’s only concession was
Speaker:‘You didn’t have to swear at her, Dru.’
Speaker:Back to the room now, and Mom was on it: ‘Felix,
Speaker:I think we’ve had enough of the fox jokes.
Speaker:Colton is a guest in this house and we all need to remember
Speaker:our manners.’ ‘It’s cool, Joanne,’
Speaker:Colton said. 'Besides,
Speaker:I think what Felix meant to say was this.'
Speaker:He put his head back now,
Speaker:and gave a chattering bark that sounded more like a battle cry.
Speaker:Dru dropped her spoon.
Speaker:Zelda covered her ears.
Speaker:Lucy looked like the china had just all exploded.
Speaker:Mom rolled her eyes and said
Speaker:'Oh God, here we go.
Speaker:Feeding time at the zoo.'
Speaker:When the room went silent, Felix stared at Colton and just said
Speaker:'Woah! Do that again!' 'Do
Speaker:not,' I said. 'Seriously,
Speaker:even I didn't know he could do that
Speaker:and I've heard it all.' ‘Sorry,'
Speaker:Colton said. 'Just
Speaker:had to. And raccoons are from…okay,
Speaker:there isn’t a stripy planet, is there?
Speaker:Felix, what was that sci-fi film with the robot that cleans an entire planet covered in trash?
Speaker:That’s where raccoons are from!’ ‘Uuuuuh!’
Speaker:I put my hands on my head,
Speaker:knowing what was coming. ‘Wall
Speaker:-E!’ Freddy yelled. ‘Hey,
Speaker:let’s watch it!’
Speaker:He’d watched it yesterday.
Speaker:And the day before. ‘No
Speaker:more TV today, young man,’
Speaker:Joanne said. ‘You’re coming with us shopping.
Speaker:We’re all going to the mall as a family.
Speaker:Apart from Todd and Colton who did their shopping yesterday.’
Speaker:Dru started grinning. ‘Do
Speaker:not, Drusilla.’ I couldn’t help but laugh.
Speaker:Dru had read it my way too:
Speaker:Todd and Colton are going to stay home so they can
Speaker:fuck without the family here.
Speaker:Nice one, Mom. Except she had covered it pretty well,
Speaker:and probably hadn’t even thought about it. ‘I’m
Speaker:staying,’ Zelda said. ‘Our
Speaker:car makes me barf up.
Speaker:Colton can babysit me.’
Speaker:In other words, she wanted to watch Colton storm the Expert levels on Super Monkeyball again. ‘You
Speaker:are not,’ Mom said. ‘You
Speaker:can ride in Rocco’s car.’
Speaker:Now the room went quiet,
Speaker:realising what I just had. ‘Where
Speaker:is Rocco?’ ‘Oh for crying out loud,’
Speaker:Mom said, as much at herself as the rest of us. ‘None
Speaker:of you told him to come in for breakfast?’
Speaker:She sighed. ‘He’s fixing the car,
Speaker:it wouldn’t start again.’
Speaker:My mechanic brother came in right on cue,
Speaker:his hands covered in oil. ‘Mom,
Speaker:I keep telling you,
Speaker:you’ve got to change that carburettor
Speaker:and get a new fuel filter,
Speaker:I can’t keep unclogging all the shit out of…oh.
Speaker:Well, great. Thanks, everybody.
Speaker:There anything left?’
Speaker:Thankfully there was,
Speaker:and just as thankfully this was a laughing matter nowadays.
Speaker:Ever since Mom had finally relaxed her dumb rule about how you had to sit at the table for every meal even if you weren’t eating,
Speaker:with only a sick note exempting you,
Speaker:half our family made a joke out of seeing who could hide,
Speaker:let the meal start,
Speaker:then walk in and do Rocco’s routine.
Speaker:This morning, it was real.
Speaker:Now though, Mom went one better:
Speaker:we all had to keep sitting at the table while Rocco ate.
Speaker:So everyone had seconds even if they didn’t want to eat it,
Speaker:just to make it less awkward for all concerned.
Speaker:I decided that just for cooking that
Speaker:smelly, sickly smoked haddock kedgeree
Speaker:recipe I hated,
Speaker:Colton could wash up the entire table and kitchen with me
Speaker:while everyone else got dressed and ready for the car.
Speaker:His hands covered in bubbles,
Speaker:he asked me maybe the oddest question I’d ever heard from him. ‘Hey,
Speaker:are you okay if I go under your bed in a minute?
Speaker:There nothing under there you don’t want me to find?’ ‘Errr…what
Speaker:do you wanna do that for?’ ‘I
Speaker:think my lighter went under there.
Speaker:Musta come out of my pocket
Speaker:as I was putting my jeans on your chair last night.’ ‘Mom
Speaker:keeps one in here for lighting the gas range,’
Speaker:I said. ‘Borrow that one if you wanna go smoke.’ ‘So
Speaker:there is something under your bed you don’t want me to see.
Speaker:Is it your collection of naked raccoon firemen
Speaker:or my Christmas present?’ ‘First,
Speaker:your Christmas present is wrapped already and it’s under the tree already.
Speaker:Second, it was swimmers I used to collect pics of,
Speaker:not firemen. And I liked otters.
Speaker:And half the porn I ever had had
Speaker:Trick and Dolphin in it
Speaker:and you’ve seen it already because you’ve got it all and then some.’ ‘Cool,’
Speaker:he said, drying the
Speaker:last plate and putting it back in the cupboard. ‘I’ll
Speaker:go search then.
Speaker:I really like that lighter.’
Speaker:I followed him back up the stairs. ‘Nice
Speaker:to know you attach real sentimental value
Speaker:to such a wholesome keepsake, fox.’ ‘Whaaaat? I promised you I’d go to just the vape pen in the New Year, didn’t I?
Speaker:And that lighter’s really special to me -
Speaker:it was the first thing I ever stole from my mom’s handbag!
Speaker:If you’d ever had the balls to do that you’d understand.’ ‘Colton.
Speaker:If anyone so much as looks
Speaker:like they’re thinking of putting a hand in Mom’s bag,
Speaker:it’s no allowance for the entire house.
Speaker:One in, all in.’ ‘Just like she does if someone wedges a door handle shut with a chair?’ ‘The
Speaker:very same. Alfie stole cash from her purse once.
Speaker:I remember it. I seriously thought
Speaker:she was gonna belt him.
Speaker:She only didn’t because Dad told her to go cool off
Speaker:and he’d punish Alfie.
Speaker:You know how Dad was brought up.
Speaker:He’s got a berserk button for people who smack kids now he’s got his own
Speaker:and he’s never doing what his Dad did,
Speaker:that’s why it all got so scary. Nobody stole from her bag after that.
Speaker:Even if they weren’t alive to see that day.’ ‘Yeah,
Speaker:yeah, okay, stealing from your Mom’s not cool.
Speaker:That’s why my mom punished me too when she found I had her zippo.
Speaker:A year later.’ ‘She made you smoke your first cigarette with it and you puked?’
Speaker:That would be just like Chantelle,
Speaker:only to have her punishment guiltily backfire on her probably not long after
Speaker:when Colton found he liked smoking. ‘Nah.
Speaker:She just told me how disappointed she was in me
Speaker:and then told me I could keep it.
Speaker:Just to remind me how shitty I’d been
Speaker:every time I looked at it.’ ‘Hell,’
Speaker:I said. ‘She was good.’ ‘Yeah,
Speaker:you’re telling me.’
Speaker:He got on all fours and started to crawl under my bed. I couldn’t miss the chance.
Speaker:I playfully smacked his butt,
Speaker:and took hold of his tail right by the bone, stopping him from moving. ‘Yeah
Speaker:yeah raccoon,
Speaker:you can jerk my tail till I get hard in a minute,
Speaker:can I get my lighter first?
Speaker:Just so I can light up after I’m done stuffing your butt?’
Speaker:I let him go. ‘It’s my turn for top.
Speaker:And if you smoke in this house
Speaker:Mom will launch you the length of the street.’
Speaker:Just to help him out even less,
Speaker:I climbed onto the bed
Speaker:and lay there. ‘The heating sure is on in this place, fox,’
Speaker:I said. ‘I think I’m gonna take my shirt and pants off.’
Speaker:I did it, squirming about on the bed as much as I could so the frame creaked. ‘Will
Speaker:you quit doing that?
Speaker:You’re the one who said you were amazed this thing can still hold a mattress up!’ ‘I
Speaker:was kidding, it’s perfectly good.
Speaker:It’s made of cedar.
Speaker:My grandfather likes carpentry,
Speaker:he made this for me when I was a kid.
Speaker:He used cedar because apparently termites hate it.’ ‘Isn’t
Speaker:that moths?’ ‘Colton,
Speaker:we’re having a conversation while you’re under my bed.’ ‘And?’
Speaker:‘You found the swimwear catalogues, didn’t you?’ ‘You
Speaker:realise your Mom probably already found those when you moved out
Speaker:and rolled her eyes before she binned the lot?
Speaker:You got one of Oz in speedos anywhere?’ ‘Actually
Speaker:I do,’ I said,
Speaker:pretending I did.
Speaker:Oz wasn’t on the swimming team at Sekada High. ‘And
Speaker:get this. That was our last year in Sekada
Speaker:and that means he was eighteen when I took it
Speaker:coz his birthday’s in September.
Speaker:You can find it?
Speaker:Go ahead. Legal wolf pic right there.’ ‘Nice
Speaker:try, trash boy.
Speaker:I wanted a pic of Oz like that I shoulda got it when he was asleep on the sun lounger at my pool party that time,
Speaker:and we…got it! How did it bounce that far?’ ‘Good.
Speaker:Now get out of there
Speaker:and come let me fuck you while you pretend I’m Oz.’ ‘Wait
Speaker:a minute, what’s that?’
Speaker:He was almost out from under the bed,
Speaker:apart from his head.
Speaker:He rolled over, then him
Speaker:obviously fumbling around with his phone to change where the light was aimed. ‘Aaaaaahahaha!
Speaker:Todd, have you seen what’s written right here?’ ‘Oh,
Speaker:God. Do I want to?’
Speaker:Colton pulled himself out,
Speaker:to find me in my underpants,
Speaker:and that just made him grin even wider,
Speaker:his laughter even more silly now. ‘Just
Speaker:get down there and look.
Speaker:I’ll bet you anything it was Alfie who did that,
Speaker:and all these years
Speaker:you never saw.’ ‘Give me that.’
Speaker:I took his phone off him,
Speaker:the light still on,
Speaker:and poked my head
Speaker:under enough to see. ‘Oh
Speaker:for Christ’s sake,’
Speaker:I said when I read it.
Speaker:It wasn’t just written onto a slat of my bed’s frame,
Speaker:ruining what my grandfather had once so lovingly crafted.
Speaker:Alfie had scratched it there,
Speaker:probably with a pen knife.
Speaker:I got back up, a deadpan look on my face even though I did want to smile,
Speaker:remembering the whole episode that had led to this,
Speaker:a good fifteen years later. ‘Yeah,
Speaker:fox. Go on then,
Speaker:laugh. “Todd is a bin rat.”
Speaker:Hilarious.’ Just as I’d figured,
Speaker:Colton hearing it spoken by my voice just intensified the whole thing.
Speaker:He clutched his sides laughing,
Speaker:probably imaging what he’d already guessed correctly:
Speaker:a six year old Alfie
Speaker:giving me jealous brotherly hate looks as Mom put all her interest into reading me a story
Speaker:or playing some game with me
Speaker:and enjoying my joyous kid laughter
Speaker:while Alfie stood there hating it
Speaker:so much, and then going up to my room
Speaker:and scratching this into my bed.
Speaker:Forever. So there.
Speaker:Alfie, who had recently used all the curse words under the sun for everyone
Speaker:and everything while he lay on his hospital bed,
Speaker:recovering from the bullet his soon-to-be ex wife
Speaker:had given him for Christmas,
Speaker:had once only been able to come up with
Speaker:“Todd is a bin rat”
Speaker:for how mad he was at the entire world.
Speaker:Colton kept trying to say it,
Speaker:unable thanks to the laughter,
Speaker:and when he finally got a hold of himself
Speaker:and saw me fake-glaring at him,
Speaker:a hand on my hip,
Speaker:he said what I’d been waiting for: ‘All
Speaker:the things I ever called you at school back when I tried to pretend I hated you…goddamn, all along your big brother was the master!
Speaker:I really never thought of that one,
Speaker:and I am so disappointed in myself.’
Speaker:He shook off as he stopped laughing.
Speaker:Then grinned again,
Speaker:brushed his own tail
Speaker:and said ‘Wanna get
Speaker:fucky with the fox,
Speaker:bin rat?’ and got
Speaker:going again. Enough
Speaker:was enough. I was going to
Speaker:imitate his piano teacher from New York,
Speaker:who actually wasn’t from New York –
Speaker:she was a straight talking,
Speaker:no-nonsense British snow leopard called Vera,
Speaker:and if she’d been here,
Speaker:her disapproving look would have been
Speaker:far too real. ‘Mr Vincent,
Speaker:you are a very immature fox,’
Speaker:I said. ‘Well Mrs Telford
Speaker:you’re a very stuffy old snepper,
Speaker:but who’s the strength to change either of us?’
Speaker:He put his lighter back in the bag he’d packed,
Speaker:and got out what I was half hoping he’d forgotten to bring –
Speaker:our favourite kink toy,
Speaker:or rather his more than mine,
Speaker:just begging for someone like Felix to spot
Speaker:after we left it lying around and say
Speaker:‘What do you guys do with
Speaker:that?’ ‘Go on then,’ Colton said,
Speaker:holding it. ‘What’s the story?
Speaker:Why’s Todd a bin rat?’
Speaker:Okay then. It actually was quite amusing. ‘Rocco’s
Speaker:only a year younger than Alfie,
Speaker:so Alfie never had any memory of what living in a house with a baby was like with him.
Speaker:Then he started remembering stuff,
Speaker:and I was born,
Speaker:and oh shit. The noise, the diapers, the mess,
Speaker:and the worst part?
Speaker:Mom’s attention not being on him so much anymore.
Speaker:And it lasted past the baby stage.
Speaker:“Mooom, will you make him shut up?
Speaker:Mooom, will you get him
Speaker:out of my room? Moooom,
Speaker:why did we need another baby in the first place?”
Speaker:Then at last he got to “Mooom,
Speaker:I hate him!” and that was it.
Speaker:Boom, allowance gone
Speaker:bye-bye.’ ‘Always the allowance with that woman.’
Speaker:Colton rolled his eyes. ‘Oh,
Speaker:and she took a bunch of his toys away
Speaker:and gave them to me.
Speaker:I got his toy cars,
Speaker:and when he went
Speaker:“That all you got?”
Speaker:with his arms folded,
Speaker:I got Mr Fluffle Bear.’ ‘Uh
Speaker:-oh.’ ‘Yeah, look out.
Speaker:He stole a magic marker from his teacher’s desk
Speaker:and brought it home and wrote
Speaker:“Todd is a bin rat”
Speaker:on the fridge door.
Speaker:Now, here we go: my grandma was staying here
Speaker:helping Mom out at the time,
Speaker:and she saw it first.
Speaker:She was old school
Speaker:and she didn’t care what my Dad would think,
Speaker:she whacked Alfie on the ass with her shoe.
Speaker:When he whined to Mom about it,
Speaker:she actually took his side,
Speaker:but she still made him scrub the fridge for
Speaker:hours with a can of white sprit from the garage until the words were gone.
Speaker:He threw up from the smell of it
Speaker:and she still made him keep going.’ ‘And
Speaker:of course that just made him want to keep writing
Speaker:“Todd is a bin rat”
Speaker:on everything.’ ‘Bingo.
Speaker:He started doing it in places that took her weeks to find.
Speaker:She just made him clean it off every time
Speaker:and said the whole thing
Speaker:would keep repeating
Speaker:until he realised what a stupid boy he was being.
Speaker:I’ve gotta give it to Mom,
Speaker:she knew all the ways to get magic marker out of everything.
Speaker:She even marched Alfie into school one morning
Speaker:when she realised where he’d been getting them from
Speaker:and made him apologise in front of his whole class for stealing from Mrs Hilderbrandt’s desk.’ ‘Niiiiice.
Speaker:‘Niiiiice.’ ‘That under there,’
Speaker:I pointed at the bed. ‘That’s
Speaker:Alfie when he just had to win.
Speaker:He figured scratching it into stuff was worse.
Speaker:He ruined a dining table doing it.
Speaker:Then he went for one last go with the magic marker.
Speaker:He pulled my shirt up when I was asleep
Speaker:and wrote it
Speaker:on me. On my stomach where I’m white,
Speaker:so it was easier to see.
Speaker:Plus he used a blue marker this time.’
Speaker:Colton laughed again. ‘Oh
Speaker:this has gotta be good.
Speaker:What did he get for that?
Speaker:Not like he could lose his allowance until the table was paid off.’ ‘Oh,
Speaker:Mom had the big guns already.
Speaker:The table? He got threatened with a whole summer at Hank and Mary’s.’
Speaker:Colton actually hadn’t heard their first names before,
Speaker:but this was a golden time to do it. ‘Woah,
Speaker:that’s your Dad’s parents right?
Speaker:The cotton farmers from Alabama?’ ‘Alfie
Speaker:stopped after that.’ ‘No
Speaker:shit.’ About to take off his own shirt, and probably wondering if there was a magic marker around he could threaten me with,
Speaker:Colton realised I wasn’t done yet. ‘Wait…’
Speaker:he pulled his shirt back down. ‘If
Speaker:that was what he got for the table,
Speaker:what the hell did she do for him drawing on his little brother?
Speaker:And how did she get that
Speaker:magic marker out when it was your fur?’ ‘She
Speaker:didn’t; she had to make my stomach fur white.
Speaker:She brought this
Speaker:peroxide home from her salon,
Speaker:then she realised you’re not supposed to use it on a toddler,
Speaker:so she had to keep using
Speaker:play fur-paint on me
Speaker:every day until it grew out enough for her to trim it off me.
Speaker:And Alfie? Man, he still thinks she can’t come up with worse.
Speaker:That’s when he gets home from school one day,
Speaker:and she puts on this little smile and says
Speaker:“I’ve decided you can have your allowance back.
Speaker:But I think the first thing you’re gonna want to do
Speaker:is save up for some new clothes.
Speaker:Because I’m not buying them for you this year.” ’
Speaker:I let Colton take this in for a moment. ‘Oh!
Speaker:She didn’t!’ ‘She did.
Speaker:She got his entire set of t-shirts and jumpers out
Speaker:and wrote ‘Alfie is a bin rat’
Speaker:on all of them, in the kind of letters you can’t miss.
Speaker:Not “I’m”, she used
Speaker:“Alfie.” There was another
Speaker:Alfie at the school,
Speaker:two years older and a golden boy who everyone loved.
Speaker:And until he could afford to replace his own clothes on three bucks savings a week,
Speaker:our Alfie was going to school wearing that on him.’ ‘God
Speaker:-damn, now I know why you never stole from your mom.
Speaker:I think I got off light.’ ‘Way
Speaker:light,’ I said,
Speaker:taking our toy from him. ‘And
Speaker:if you call me a
Speaker:bin rat while you’re having sex with me,
Speaker:I’m gonna strap this muzzle on you so tight
Speaker:that it’ll lock your fox mouth shut
Speaker:for a week.’ This was “Under the Bed” by Todd Aldrington,
Speaker:read for you by Dirt Coyote, from Twitter dot Com.
Speaker:You can find more stories on the web at thevoice.dog,
Speaker:or find the show wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker:Happy Holidays, and Thank you for listening
Speaker:to The Voice of Dog.