What If They Were Competent?

by Mr. Chaos

The Stipulation: One chapter a day. 500 words or less. Every episode of Rugrats. The Challenge: What if the adults on Rugrats were actually good parents? Watched their kids? Thought ahead? DIDN'T think it was fine for babies to nearly die every 5 days? Tommy is about to have a very different life with Stu and Didi actually using their brains.

196. Zoo Story

Zoo Story

"I wonder where our daddies are taking us," Lil said as Stu drove his minivan along the private drive. Howard was acting as his co-pilot while Chas sat with this kids, making sure all of them were doing okay.

"Oh, I know this place!" Chuckie said happily. "My daddy took me here while you went to the circus, Tommy! This is the zoo!"

"Ooooh!" Tommy, Phil, Lil, and even Dil said.

…

"What's a zoo?" Tommy asked.

"Its where they have animals live!" Chuckie proclaimed. "But not like duckies or horsies… well, there are some here but there are big kitty cats with fur around their necks and striped horsies and big funny gray things with long noses."

"Lions?" Tommy asked excitedly.

"And Zebras?" Phil added.

"And Elephants?!" Lil finished.

"Yay!" Dil exclaimed (he had no idea what any of those things were).

"Yeah, and there is a petting zoo where you can play with the baby animals and neat toys we can get and…"

~MC~MC~MC~

"Can you roar Tommy?" Stu asked as he held him up to watch the lions. "Roar!"

"Rawr!" Tommy cried out, throwing back his head.

And when one of the lions roared back he let out a yelp… only to giggle and squeal.

~MC~MC~MC~

"He eats like you Phil!" Lil teased as they watched a hippo munch on a whole watermelon.

~MC~MC~MC~

"Aren't they pretty, Chuckie?" Chas said as they saw the peacocks.

~MC~MC~MC~

"ooo ooo ooo!"

Dil didn't know why but while everyone else was excited to see the monkeys all he could hear was Tommy yelling "You can have a moneky daddy, and a monkey mommy, and a monkey brother!"

Though when Tommy toddled over and held his hand and said it was okay Dil did feel a lot better.

~MC~MC~MC~

"Careful there guys," Stu said as he put a bit of feed in Tommy's hand, the one year old squealing in delight as a baby goat began to eat away at the food, tickling his palm with his tongue.

~MC~MC~MC~

Phil and Lil clapped as they rode the little train around the track, waving to plastic standees of different animals.

~MC~MC~MC~

"What do you want, Dil?" Stu asked, the baby considering long and hard before he pointed at a tiger stuffed animal. And when Stu actually GAVE it to him? Dil began to throw his hands out in delight.

~MC~MC~MC~

"Wait," Melinda said, "was everything fixed because of them being competent earlier in this story?"

The creator shrugged. "Yeah, continuity to the rescue!"