The Wolverine Story

(as requested by K.)

Ok, here is a story that I am going to tell you before Kev gets a chance to tell you. I am sure his version would make me look much dumber than my version. So here goes:

The other night, we were discussing badgers. I do not know why. Anyway, I told Kev that I didn't think I'd recognize a badger if I saw one, and he said they looked sort of like wolverines. That's weird, I thought, and I told Kev I thought wolverines were like mini wolves.

Now. Let's stop right there a second. You see, "mini" was a poor choice of words on my part. When I said mini-wolves, Kev erupted in Laughter At My Expense (LAME). He began to talk between chuckles about "wolves in 1/3 scale" and so forth. What I meant when I said that though, was that I thought wolverines were members of the wolf family, but slightly smaller. I did NOT mean tiny mouse-sized wolves.

Let me tell you how I very logically arrived at the idea that wolverines were mini - scratch that - small wolves. I have never experienced a wolverine in real life, nor at a zoo, nor in any children's literature nor animated film. At no time, did anyone sit me down and say, "Tara, THIS is a woverine." So I had very little to base my assumption on besides the wolverine's name alone.

Hmmm. Wolverine. Has the "wolve-" right at the beginning. OK. Next. Sounds kinda like the word "figurine." What is a figurine? A small figure. Next. There are sports teams called wolverines, so they are probably fierce creatures. Like wolves. And finally, the guy in the X-Men movie looks WAY more like a wolf-man than a badger.

It never occurred to me that a wolverine might NOT be part of the wolf family, so I never bothered to look it up.

I guarentee that if someone told Kev that there was an animal called a "pantherine," he would think it was a smaller kind of panther.

Kev was also quite shocked and amused to learn that I have gone my whole 39 years without knowing the difference between a shotgun and a rifle. Why on earth would I need to know a thing like that?

So, make fun of me if you will. I don't care. Live and learn, I say. At least I know that Chicken of the Sea is a tuna fish.