Broadcast: November 2, 2003
Duke's Story

Duke the Mouse in:
CANDY IS STILL DANDY

     In honor of a sense of air play and honesty, this radio program is always willing to admit mistakes and make corrections. Do you remember last week’s story about my pet mouse? Well, I didn’t either. I mean, its not easy to keep these stories straight.
     Anyway, somehow Duke heard the story and he was not very happy with it. In fact, he said it was an insult to him. Now, I want you to know how easy it is to offend my pet mouse. Right. He never does anything around here except wait to be offended so he can sniff and snort and make a big scene.
     In last week’s story I said Duke confused Halloween and Thanksgiving. That is not true. Honestly, how could you confuse the two? I don't really know. Well, that was not accurate. He actually confused Halloween and Arbor Day. He wanted to plant a spooky, dead tree in the yard.
     Now, if you remember last week’s show, Duke had decided to go trick-or-treating at the last moment but all he did was come to my door to get candy. After awhile its pretty easy to see what is going on.
     Well, Duke finally stopped trick-or-treating and it took me an hour to get him to settle down. He had some homework to do and after he got that finished, Duke asked if he could play with his candy.
     Play with his candy? I suppose it would be ok, I explained to my pet mouse, but most people do something else with their candy.
     Duke looked at me like was from California or something. He said he did not approve of playing baseball with gumdrops or using candy bars for football practice.
     Well, I don’t either! That wasn’t what I had in mind but with my pet mouse, that doesn’t matter much. Once he gets an idea in her head, well, you can forget about the rest of it.
     So I told him to go ahead and have as much fun as he wanted with his candy. He could play with it for the rest of the evening.
     I guess I got busy with something else because I didn’t hear from Duke for quite a while. He often plays by himself for hours. The next time I came around, Duke had all of his candy out and he was stacking it up.
     When I asked him why he was doing that, he rolled his eyes and said I could play, too, as long as I didn’t ask too many questions. Good thing, too, because once he got started, it was very interesting to see him play. He stacked the candy up until it started to look like a tiny wall, just the right size for a mouse house. And then he built another wall and another until it was finally clear what he was doing. My pet mouse was making himself a dandy candy mouse house. The doors and windows were just the right size for Duke. Frankly, I don’t know how he did it without eating the bricks. I’m sure I would have done it. Maybe the floor, too. He used a lollypop for a coat rack, sheets of chocolate for the inside of the walls, hard candy for the steps, pretzels for the hand railings and all different kinds of candy for the bricks. It was a fine house and I was glad to see that Duke could use candy for something other than a toothache.
     So there you have it. Duke is more than just a silly mouse. He is very inventive and clever and he has a house made of candy to prove it. I wish I could say I was as good a person as my pet mouse. I accidentally ate the back porch when Duke wasn’t looking. Well, it was so good. All that chocolate—I just couldn’t help myself. Yeah, Duke forgave me and then we ate the rest of the place.
     And that’s the way it is with Duke.