Rex

by

Robert Hampton Burt

    Tyrannosaurus Rex was a very large beast and, though frightful
to dogs and cats perhaps, popular with children.
   
Scientists have proven to their own satisfaction, if to no one
else's, that some dinosaurs carried rocks in their stomachs to grind
up their meals, which in the case of Tyrannosaurus Rex was not all
leaves it seems. But no one has been able to think why the animal's
arms were shaped the way they were, crumpled against its chest and
dangling misshapenly like a couple of shriveled up twigs on a
windblown tree or something.
    
I would like to suggest that it was because Tyrannosaurus Rex
was so busy typing all the time. There is not anything else except
typing that would cause a beast's arms to be shaped like that.
    
Why would Tyrannosaurus Rex want to type so much, you might ask.
The answer was its teeth.
    
It had hundreds of them, or nearly hundreds. No animal could be
happy with so many long, massive teeth. When it looked into the
mirror in the mornings, it must have caused the unfortunate animal
to experience severe depression. And those bulky jaws. Anyone would
be upset.
    
No, the animal typed in order to correspond with its dentist
frequently, and with its defense attorney, and with its hyperrhinolaryngologist.
    
Nor were the teeth shaped correctly. You can see that. They were
cylindrical and slightly curved and bluntly pointed, not like proper
teeth at all, completely unsuitable for gnashing and ripping and
tearing, which is what Tyrannosaurus Rex really wanted to do. No,
its teeth were more useful for grabbing onto things and holding them
and tossing them up into the air and catching them when they came
screaming back down again. And they were much too far apart for
healthy chewing. Shreds of meat from the Diplodicus Wellington kept
getting stuck between them. And then, with its arms so small that it
could not reach its mouth with them, forks with unusually long handles
were needed. This meant that Tyrannosaurus Rex had to write emails to
cutlery people the world over, trying to obtain implements both of a
quality suitable to it and useful.
    
You can imagine what it must have been like: Unpopular on account
of its looks; miserable all of the time because its teeth didn't work
properly; hard skin; bad temper; beady eyes. And those crumpled little
arms.
    No wonder it was hostile toward the other animals.
    
Typing is obviously the most logical cause. That and the glare of
its computer monitor. What else could have produced such an obsessed,
ill-tempered, veiny-eyed monster?

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