It was the most stressful time of the year.
The matriarch of the house, Grand-mummah, was screeching a colorful mix of insults and orders from her perch in the kitchen, wielding a wooden spoon. Mummah, her ill-favored daughter-in-law, was struggling to follow her contradictory demands and screaming for Little Mummah, who was nowhere to be found. Daddeh, the spoiled manchild Mummah had inexplicably married, was slung haphazardly across the sagging leather couch. His face was a deep purple, and he was squealing indignantly at Little Daddeh, who was half-up and half-down the stairs, gesticulating wildly, surrounded by an avalanche of dropped presents, and squealing in a very similar manner right back.
Yeti, the snowball white fluffalo, was cowering behind the would-be christmas tree, a small but stately evergreen that had yet to be decorated. He did not fear his family, but he did not enjoy the noise, and made silent pleas for peace toward each of them in turn with sad brown eyes hidden under a frock of poofy head-fluff. It was not until Daddeh and Little Daddeh resolved their dispute that the fluffalo was noticed.
“Move,” grunted Little Daddeh, shoving the manmade beast aside with his leg. He did not hate Yeti, but had a number of presents to place under, behind, and around that little tree, and the fluffalo was very much in the way.
“Sowwy Widdul Daddeh,” Yeti mooed over his shoulder as he waddled off. “Yeddeh nu mean to.”
“MOVE!” squealed Daddeh, flinging his remote into the fluffalo’s fleshy wall of a torso in practiced fashion. The snowdrift of a fluffalo had accidentally wandered in front of the TV, as he so often did, and was stopping Daddeh from watching… something or another. Nothing good was on, but that didn’t stop Daddeh from watching TV anyway.
“Su sowwy Daddeh,” Yeti mooed as he waddled elsewhere, once again not paying a lick of attention to where he was going. “Yeddeh nu mean to.”
“BRATLEIGH!” hollered Mummah, having planted her knee firmly and solidly into the fluffalo’s side–completely by accident, of course. “GET DOWN HERE AND PUT YOUR TOY AWAY!”
“Sowwy Mummah,” Yeti mooed over his shoulder as he waddled, unhurt but heartbroken to have been such an inconvenience. “Yeddeh nu mean to.”
It was Grandmummah’s turn to scream at Yeti now, but whatever came out of her mouth was little more than meaningless, glass-shattering screeches. Yeti looked at her, looked down at the broken ceramic bowl of indecipherable green mush, and turned around to waddle away.
“Su sowwy Gwan’mummah,” he mooed over his shoulder as he left. “Yeddeh nu mean to.”
Little Mummah never appeared, so it was Little Daddeh’s job to deal with the fluffalo.
“You’ll like it,” he grunted, this time from exertion. He had lifted the fluffalo under his front weggies in a sort of from-the-back hug, and was struggling both to see and to move. “It’s snowing out, you’ll have fun.”
“Otay Widdul Daddeh,” Yeti mooed. “Yeddeh wub yu, see yu wader.”
“You too bud,” Little Daddeh said, dumping the fluffalo into the equally fluffy, snow-covered backyard. He had shut the door behind him, but was unworried–the yard was secure, and the fluffalo was more than capable of handling the cold weather.
Everything would be fine.
Everything would definitely, absolutely be fine.
Nothing could possibly go wrong.