Leonardo Da Countertop

LEONARDO DA COUNTERTOP
By Matthew Sanborn Smith

What you had was a bunch of short people, and when I say short I’m talking a millimeter or so, all living on this kitchen countertop. You’d think it would be a pretty sweet deal, but those ingrates wanted off. They turned to Leonardo, their greatest inventor and said, “Hey, help us out here, will ya?”

“Yes!” he screamed, startling everyone. You know what they say about geniuses: They’re pretty smart.

Leonardo tore a piece of hair from his head and let it drop. “Look at the hair! Look at the hair!”

Everyone looked at the hair. “Maybe this wasn’t the way to go,” Billy Schultz said.

“The hair catches the air, and floats gently to the ground!” Leonardo screamed.

“So?” everyone asked.

“So? We cover ourselves in hair and float from the countertop safely to the ground.”

“Damn, are you sure about this?” Danny asked. “I mean, that’s a long way down, Dude.”

“It’ll be fun, you’ll see,” Leo assured them. He immediately went to work on a hair-growth formula and weeks later, he was covered in hair that was many times the length of his body. The chicks loved it.

“Check it out!” Leonardo screamed. He ran to the edge of the countertop.

Billy said, “Don’t you want to like, test it or something first?”

“Who’s the scientist here?” Leonardo asked, I mean, screamed. He disappeared over the edge. The braver souls ran to the edge to see Leonardo float safely down to the floor below. But then the big lady came, the one who was more than a thousand times their size.

“Goddamned cat,” she muttered. She tore an enormous paper towel from a roll, picked up Leonardo in it and squished him good before throwing him in the garbage can.

“Countertop’s not lookin’ so bad,” Billy said.

“I like the countertop,” Danny said. “Always have. It was my girlfriend who wanted to leave. New coat of paint, it’ll be pretty sharp.”

Everyone wandered home, agreeing to stop at the paint place after lunch and look at colors.