Story: Mungo Pinkerton F., M.D. by Kirk Thomas
Biographical:
In the fall of 1996, myself and a team of animal pharmacologists discovered the rare North American Pink Elephant tamed by local residents in the town of DeForest, Wisconsin. The surly beast had made a living, apparently as the village doctor, having set up shop and business in its own rudimentary abode 40 yards to the north and east of the town’s oldest truck stop, just off the intersection of State Highways 51 and 19.
A drunkard and a lush, the hulkish Loxodonta famously insisted on being referred to with respect to his due title, ‘Doctor Mungo P. Fungo’, or simply Dr. Fungo. But as the county and the southwestern part of the state would find out January 17th of 2005 with the explosion of the esteemed doctor’s second liver, it was not always a pleasant experience to be a Mungo — not even as it were, for ‘Fungo’.
In the spring of 2005, even as the Kyoto Protocol was ratified by the Russia of Vladimir V. Putin, we lay to rest the great magenta mastodon in a triple plot dug out of a patch of uncovered ground there in the northern most corner-ell of Waunakee, Wisconsin’s own Schmidt’s Auto Salvage, and there the late Dr. Fungo still resides. By special agreement with Randall Schmidt, third owner of the same line and bearing the same Schmidt name, the burial site of the bespectacled pink grandfather of general practitioners has been preserved heroically and dutifully cared for by Randall and his good sons, Anthony and Bart.
Enthusiasts and broke-down motorists are gratefully encouraged to stop by the midwestern scrap yard to scavenge parts and pay their respects. However, they are curtly reminded at the gate by one Mrs. Penelope Ann Schmidt, that if they want to buy a serpentine belt, they need to bring their own quarter-inch ratchet. And perhaps, more urgently, that if the Schmidt son Bartholomew suggests any visitor might like to come and see the pink elephant, it is better to refuse.
Caption Text:
Pink Elephant
Loxodonta Magentus
(01.08.1967 — 01.17.2005)
Medical Doctor, G.P.
— Master of Etiquette
— Expert of Loxodontian Alphabets
Speech Therapist, L.P., PsyD
— Optician in Elephant Eyeglasses
— Scientologist, OT III: Friends with Tom Cruise
Car Wash Manager: SE Wisconsin
— Water Busket Quality Inspection
