A fox passing through the wood on business of his own stopped several minutes and sniffed.
'Hobbits!' he thought. 'Well, what next? I have heard of strange doings in this land, but I have seldom heard of a hobbit sleeping out of doors under a tree. Three of them! There's something mighty queer behind this.' He was quite right, but he never found out any more about it.
And with that Joel, the fox, set off once again on his way. His four tiny feet padded along through brambles and bushes as he hummed an off key beat to the tune of his stride:
Oh I'd love to be an Oscar Mayer weiner.
That is what I'd truly like to be.
'Cause if I were an Oscar Mayer wiener,
Everyone would be in love with me.
Oh, I'm glad I'm not an Oscar Mayer wiener.
That is what I'd never want to be.
Cause if I were an Oscar Mayer wiener
There would soon be nothing left of me!
Every now and again a bird would swoop by to join him in his melody. Joel snapped at them playfully (or out of hunger, it was quite difficult to tell the two apart being a fox and all.)
Eventually Joel came to a complete stop behind a dinky little shack, checking this way and that way to make sure he wasn't followed. There was a secret here. To the casual onlooker there was absolutely nothing to be seen there at all, but oh 'twere truly there if only one knew where to look, which Joel did. Joel planted his paws against a pompous rock –with considerably more pomp than weight- and pushed. It slid out the way quite unceremoniously considering its size, revealing a small hole beneath just large enough for a fox. Joel slunk into it and tucked the top back across overhead.
Joel spent a slow while navigating the many twists and turns of this underground labyrinth, pausing every once and a while to take a long drag from the almost empty canteen that hung around his neck. Eventually Joel spied a bright light break across the ceiling of one of these pathways. He poked his paws through the top, huffing and puffing with the effort of pulling his chubby fox body out of the tunnel with his skinny little fox arms.
"Joeeel!"
"Joeeeeeel!"
Twin toddler foxes, named Mary and Pip, rushed up to greet him as he dusted himself off from his recent spelunking. Joel scooped them up in his arms and twirled them around in the air. Once, twice, and once more for good measure. A sleek little lady fox approached the trio from behind and embraced Joel lovingly.
Right before the kiss Adonna, Joel's wife, turned up her nose. "Ew, you smell dear. Go shower hun."
"I know, I know." Joel lowered the little tykes to the ground as Mary playfully nipped at his ear (or hungrily, it being quite difficult to tell the two apart being foxes and all).
With a skip in his legs and a song in his heart Joel made his way to the door of his rinky dink townhouse. It wasn't much, but it was the best he and his wife could afford on his budget as a lower school athletics Director.
Once inside Joel first made his way to the kitchen to pour a cold glass of milk. The sloshy liquid quickly found its way over the brim and spattered across the carpet, but what did he care. He was back in his safe place, his sanctuary, his Hogwarts, his Camp Half-Blood. Hakuna Matata. He tipped his cup and began drinking his fill to life and the many happy years beyond.
The fresh drink quickly soured in his mouth with the sudden presence of an unwanted voice and unwelcome face.
"Joel GOOD LORD of mercy. Who is that vixen next door." A too-skinny fox by the name of Ed came tumbling into the room. His breath was foul with alcohol and Pall Malls.
"Married."
"Wha'?
"She's married Ed. Her name's Vicky." Joel bit down softly on his inner cheek, pinching the skin betwixt his teeth. It was a bad habit and a dead giveaway towards his infamous rage. "She's a Christian gal, yeah pretty on the eyes and all but she's pretty innocent man."
Ed guffawed "Matters not to me boy! I would BLESS her." Ed crossed his heart in the manner of a prayer (or curse, depending on perspective).
"Haha Okay Ed."
"Bless her." He whispered it this time, wrapping his arm around Joel's shoulder and scooching close as if he were about to reveal some astronomical secret. "Bless her."
"Aha, you do that." Stretching an arm over the sink Joel overtipped the cup of milk and let it run down the drain, opening the fridge anew to exchange his now empty glass for an ice cold can of Natty Light.
All of a sudden Pip scampered across the floor and tapped Ed on the leg. "Gotcha! You're it!" Pip was gone again as fast as he came.
"AY!" Ed hollered "Somebody GET that little nigga!" he yelled out fiercely, his words came out slurred as if his mouth were a blender and someone had just hit Frappe.
Joel raised an eyebrow at this "Ever played tag before?"
"I AINT ONE TO PLAY WITH!" Ed coiled up like a spring and launched in the direction of the toddler, slamming headfirst into cupboards on his first few attempts to make it out the door.
A sleek attractive figure soon takes his place at the door frame. Adonna walked into the kitchen.
"Love?"
"Hmmm?"
"What's going on dear? You look upset." She walked over and put a hand on his shoulder with a concerned face.
He hated when she tried to play coy with him. It was one of the biggest reasons why he had given serious consideration towards chatting with her little sister more when they were back in high school. Word had it that she was a famous model now, strutting her foxy little fox stuff from the Elvish city of Rivendell all the way to the fiery pits of Mordor.
Joel cracked the tab off his beer and chucked it backwards into the sink "What's Ed doing here?"
"We talked about this Joel! Ed is my brother."
Joel crossed his arms and frowned "Honey, Ed is an alcoholic." He sighed a weary sigh "Right now a grown man is chasing our only son around the house with murderous intent and for the life of me I still can not figure out why."
Adonna got 'that look' on her face "He doesn't have anywhere to staaaay." She pouted through puffed up cheeks.
"Right now a grown man is chasing our one and only son arou-"
"Don't repeat yourself." Adonna snapped. "I heard you right the first time."
"Oh did you?" Joel questioned.
"You know what" Adonna smiled an irritated smile "We're not having this discussion." She said, throwing up her paws in frustration.
"Right now a grown man is-"
"We're NOT. HAVING. THIS. DISCUSSION!" Adonna screamed.
By reflex Joel curled up like a worm expecting a rather large foot, but she was long gone by the time he gathered the courage to peek through his paws.
So apparently Ed would be staying.
Joel threw back his head and let the bitter potion wash down his throat in one gulp.
"I'm the man!" He thought "I'm the man around this house and they all just walk right over me like I'm some worn rug!" He picked up a vase and flung it into a wall. It barely shattered.
"GRR!" He growled at no one in particular and coiled up into attack mode. "I'm a man!" He hissed.
"WHAT! Was THAT!?"
Joel straightened up and sighed "Just an anger vase honey."
"CLEAN IT UP!"
Unbidden tears came streaking down Joel's face. "I can't do anything in this house!" He thought to himself.
Joel and Adonna had been buying vases from the Dollar Store with the sole purpose of Joel having something to smash when he got into one of his moods, but apparently he couldn't even do that anymore. Or perhaps it just got tiring since this had been Joel's 16th in 5 days.
Joel swept the tiny fragments of vase that had broken off into a dustpan and scooped them into an old grocery bag, tying the top with a hearty knot. Joel reset the vase on the countertop (for later flinging, he was certain) and set out for the recycling bin.
Outside, once the sun had touched his face, Joel started to sweat immediately. A couple of sweat bees took notice of this and badgered him all the way to the twin dumpsters sitting at the side of his house. Joel snapped at them but this only caused one to swoop in and sting him right at the tip of the nose. Joel yelped out and threw the bag into the trash in a hurry, dashing back to the front of his house in record time. Panting hard at his doorstep Joel shot a dirty glance towards the cluttered field that sat in front of the hedgehog's house, which existed at the opposite end of the trio of houses. It was littered with all kinds of vegetables and fruit stuffs that foxes weren't particularly fond of and attracted many a critter that foxes didn't think were particularly tasty.
"Dirty Savages." he spat at the ground. It's not that Joel was a racist, he thought, he had had herbivore friends before in elementary school after all. It was just that, well, you know, he wouldn't want his daughter to come home with one unless he was for supper.
"These flowers are beautiful." His neighbor Vicky's husband, an old husky white wolf by the name of Adam, clutched his heart, staring at the small flower bed in Joel and Adonna's yard. Oddly enough he had been Joel's Sunday School teacher back in the day, but ended up marrying a wife even younger than his…
Joel blushed at the compliment, his fur taking on a merry color from head to toe "Well I put a lot of elbow grease into it."
Adam blinked, as if he had just taken notice of Joel. "Do you know why they're here?"
Joel puffed up "Well after the marriage my wife and I thought it'd be nice ya know" the fox recalled proudly, his eyes staring wistfully to the clouds "Something for the tykes. Truth be told my wife kept going on and on about planting these roses instead of daffodils, but how pretentious is that? I for on-"
"Jesus." Adam said.
"Excuse me?"
"Jesus put the flowers there Joel. He put them there for me." the old coot clutched a couple handfuls and ripped them from their roots.
Joel scratched his head and stared at the egocentric man. Hadn't he just explained that he had put the flowers there for his children? "As far as I know Jesus has been dead a good 2015 years."
Wait, what universe are we in again?
The old preacher balled up a fist and went upside Joel's head, causing Joel to yip and splay out on the ground. "Spare the rod and spoil the child."
"I'm a man!" Joel barked.
The preacher grabbed Joel by the fur of his chest and lifted him to the sky "What the devil has gotten hold of you today boy! What demons lay claim to this putrid spirit! Speak or have the devil ripped from thine soul!" He snarled. With his free hand he gripped Joel's snout and tried to pry his mouth open.
"Dude!" Joel screamed, jerking his face away. "It's stress! Just stress!"
"Something so minor as stress? I suppose that can be exorcised through more conventional methods." Adam dropped Joel and waved his hands mystically in the air. "Geralt:19:54 Speak to have thine voice heard, or have thine voice ripped from thine gullet." The last part he snarled.
"Well if I'm to put the situation as courteously as possible, Adonna's brother is on path to steer his pathetic train wreck of an existence clear through my life." Joel confessed, he uncomfortably pawed at his gullet.
"Ah, the alcoholic?"
"Yes sir."
"This bothers you?"
"Well yeah. He's got something weird going on with the kids, he's drunk, smells like a farm animal. Even said something about your wife… kept saying something about 'blessing' her… What does that even mean?"
"No one knows what it means, but it's provocative."
Joel turned up an eyebrow to this.
"It gets the people going." Adam clarified.
"Okay Adam."
Adam yawned and stretched his arms "Well continue to have thine voice heard, or have it removed from thine gullet, yadda yadda."
Joel sighed and deflated. His voice grew bashfully dim and he twiddled with his fingers shyly in front of him "Well I'm supposed to be the man ya know. I just wanna be the man. Be allowed to do man stuff. Go out without having to tell my mom for once, buy a cupcake without asking Adonna first, have an adult Netflix account. Grab Ed by his Mangy mane and tell him to skedaddle. I swear I'm gonna tell him one day Adam. Then pull him aside and sock him dead in the mouth."
"That might not be a good idea Joel." Adam said.
"Oh please, don't give me a sermon Adam. This is about respect."
"I wasn't. Joel, you haven't lifted in quite a while. In fact it's been ages."
"Are you kidding me?" Joel perked up and grinned, flexing a skinny arm "I get kids in shape for a living!"
"Yeah… PE teacher." Adam whistled condescendingly.
"Yeah? What do you bench wiseguy?" Joel asked him
"285. What do you bench?"
Joel narrowed his eyes in a fittingly fox like manner "A wife. Two kids. The financial stability of the small ecosystem that thrives in my household."
Adam shrugged and looked off to the side disinterestedly.
"At least my wife is hotter than yours." Joel thought.
"Well. Feeling any better?" Adam asked.
"Sort of." Joel admitted.
"Guess I'll be off." Adam walked towards the flower bed once again and bent over.
"What about the flowers you just dropped on the ground?" Joel growled.
"Sullied." Adam ripped himself a fresh handful and walked off "Till our paths cross anew."1
"Bye" Joel waved him off.
"Buh-bye." Adam waved back, disappearing down the community foxhole.
Joel went back inside the house and fixed himself a bowl of Cheerios.
1 In fact Joel and Adam would never cross paths again. Adam never did return through that foxhole, instead choosing to settle down with his hobbit mistress in the shire. He eventually lost his life valiantly at the Battle of Bywater (November 3, 3019 or SR 1419 by Shire-reckoning in the Shire Calendar)