"Hey guy, whatcha got there?" "Oh, that's just my tiger." "Oh, yeah? That's pretty cool." "Yeah, I know right?" "Musta cost a pretty penny." "Yeah, but it'll be worth it." "Say, he's pretty big." "Just gonna get bigger too." "Gonna get bigger?" "Oh yeah, he's just a cub. He'll get way bigger." "Wow, what are you gonna do then?" "Whaddya mean?" "Well he's liable to be pretty tough to handle, you know. That cage won't hold'im no more." "I'm gonna get a bigger cage." "Probably costs alot to feed him too." "Yeah, sure does, especially this good feed I'm givin' him." "Whaddya feed him that high dollar stuff for?" "Well, he's gonna grow way faster on it, and get a lot bigger." "How you gonna afford to keep givin' him that stuff and build bigger and bigger cages?" "Well shoot! With a tiger this big, the money's just gonna come rollin in, and when they make better feed, and bigger, higher tech cages, I'll have plenty of cash cause everyone'll wanna see this bad boy in the best of circumstances." "I guess you're right, gonna take alotta work to look after him though." "Well, you can't be lazy, get ya nowhere. If you want a big tiger, you just gotta work for it. One day, it'll all pay off." "Have you seen the Johnson's over there, they got a real nice ocelot." "Yeah, haha, yeah I uh... I saw it." "What, you don't like it?" "No, its cute. Real cute." "Well what's the matter with it." "Nothin, nothin. It's just... It ain't no tiger, you know." "Yeah, but it's real nice, gentle as a show pig, and don't eat much. Heck, their kids play with it, and it's full grown. They can take it on walks and let it in the house. It does tricks too. Your tiger can't do none, can't teach him or he'll kill you." "He won't need to do tricks." "You know Salvador Dali had a pet ocelot." "Yeah, well Tony Montana had a tiger." "So did Sigfried and Roy." The two stared at each other in silence. "Well this tiger is gonna be bigger and better than anything they had." "Yeah, you're probably right, gonna be the biggest around." "He'll be the top tiger, no one'll be able to get near." "For now." "Whaddya mean 'for now'." "Well, once he gets big, someone else'll probably try to get a bigger one." "Just let'em try." "What are you gonna do, have a tiger war." "Dang right. A tiger war." "Shoot, it'll be the end of you!" "Then I'll go down swingin, cause I'll be damned if I let someone else's tiger get bigger than mine! A man's got a right to grow as big a tiger as he wants and I'm gonna grow the biggest if it kills me!" "It probably will kill you." "Then so be it." "No, not the effort, I mean the tiger, it's gonna get big enough you won't be able to cage it or control it at all, and it's gonna eat you. I mean it is literally going to kill you and eat you." "Well, I guess you're right, but it'll be a heck of a way to go, and people, they'll remember me." "I guess you're right. I'm gonna go play with that ocelot, he likes when you rub his belly too, he's real cute." "Yeah, well good luck with that, have fun with your little ocelot." |