History Lesson
Although this ends in a truly egregious pun, it's NOT an entry in the "Back to Pundamentals" contest. My three entries are already posted, and they're more furry-based -- the puns themselves relate to furriness. This one is a favorite pun of mine that I've retrofitted into the furryverse in order to inflict it upon you, my Constant Readers. Enjoy. Or writhe in pain, or perhaps both...
By the way, the grumpy rabbit student Wendell is a tribute and nod to the great webcomic Kevin and Kell by Bill Holbrook.
To prevent painful things like this from happening again, put money into my tip jar (see icon at the end of the story), or click here to join my Patreon. If not, I might inflict even worse upon you...
"All right, class," the lady cheetah clapped her forepaws smartly, smiling. "The bell's already rung. In your seats, time to begin."
With the various grumbling complaints that befitted the rebellious hormones of adolescence, the class of some twenty-seven pups, kits, and others settled themselves into their desks. The teacher caught the gist of some of the mumbles and was about to address them when she noticed the modestly dressed bear sow still standing, politely waiting to be heard.
"What is it, Veronica?" the teacher asked, equally politely.
"Ms. Pulido, I... well, I know that the history of this world is probably important for us to know, but these humans seem so..." The bear ducked her head a bit. "I know this sounds prejudiced, but their whole history seems so violent..."
"You raise a very good point, actually." The teacher rather enjoyed the surprised look on the sow's face as she took her seat. "We were lucky, in much of our history, and by that same token, we're lucky to have made friends with the humans in this time instead of a few hundred years earlier. What I want to impress upon you all is that they, as a species, are still evolving, still growing. Had we landed in, say, the 1800s on their calendar, we'd have been hunted down as demonic beasts."
"We still are," grumped one of the vulpine football players.
"Not as much as we might hear about, Franklin, and there are laws, and humans willing to prosecute. I thought it might be good for us to talk about some of the humans' examples of truly great progress, the ones most worthy of the meaning of the term 'humanity.' And I'll start with a human named Mohandas K. Gandhi, who was called the Mahatma ... a word from the Sanskrit meaning 'great soul.'"
"Didn't they make a movie about him?" wondered a young feline that the teacher knew was a video-game addict.
"Yes, and it's a very good palimpsest of his life." The teacher grinned, putting up a forestalling paw. She turned to write the word on the blackboard. "Look it up. In the meantime, however, there are a few things about Gandhi that weren't addressed in the film. You may already know that he was a practitioner of non-violence, so much so that he was what humans would call a vegetarian. We'd call him a herbivore."
"Why is that an issue?" asked a belligerent rabbit in the back row.
"Because, Wendell, human digestive systems evolved into an omnivorous state early in their development. To go without eating meat is difficult for them; they have to make up for their nutritional needs in other ways, and it often made Gandhi weak and delicate. Some cynics have decided that it was this weakness that caused him to have what they called 'mystical visions' of a human world at peace. It also gave him terribly bad breath."
"I repeat my question," the rabbit grumped.
"Because it's tough enough to get these humans to negotiate with one another without one or more of them having problems with their breath. Why do you think those commercials about mints and gum are so popular? Anyway... Gandhi was also known for refusing to wear any clothing that was not made by himself, or made there in his native India. This was a rebellion against the clothing and other goods made in England and sold there - a country that was still a British colony. He walked everywhere, without shoes, or as the humans call it, bare-foot."
The teacher shot a glance at the bunny before he could speak. "Again, it's an issue because humans' hind paws, or 'feet,' aren't made to walk such distances on human-made surfaces like gravel, asphalt, and so forth. Gandhi's feet became extremely calloused, just to be able to survive the distances that he would walk, even in his less than healthy condition. He walked everywhere, to promote his vision of a human world at peace.
"And that," the teacher paused to emphasize the point, "is how he came to be known as the super-calloused fragile mystic vexed with halitosis."
