A Sea Cucumber's Gut Feelings

Ugg, the sea cucumber, was depressed.

For the past few days, he had been feeling low. Like really low. For when he reflected on his own self - he felt so... inadequate. Especially, when he compared himself to the big creatures that swam overhead - the whales, sharks, tunas, and octopuses - each a magnificent marine animal hundred times his size, each extraordinary.

But not him. No.

He spent his days and nights buried in the bottom of the ocean. He had no defense system. He wasn’t fierce or poisonous. He wasn't a fast swimmer. He had no arms, no legs, no gills, no fins, no speed, and no camouflage. He was worse than ordinary. He was extra-ordinary.

Ugg was close to tears. Why was he worse than ordinary? Why was he 'extra' ordinary?

A fish came up to his behind. A thin pearl fish. It checked out Ugg's behind. Ugg didn't even turn though he did not like it at all. Why was the fish there? What was the fish doing there?

As Ugg was thinking, the fish went bump, bump, bump against Ugg's butt.

This annoyed Ugg no end.

A puckered fish mouth on his butt? Bumping over and over?

Couldn’t the fish see? What did it use its glassy, fishy eyes for?

Why do I put up with it? Ugg asked.

Because there was nothing he could do about it. He had no defense.

If only, Ugg thought. If only he could turn around and eat it. If only he could swiftly swim away or suck it in or grab it in his deadly jaws...

The pearl fish bumped into him again. Once. Twice. Thrice.

Then it did something worse. It squirmed into Ugg's butt. Wriggled. Into. His. Butt.

Was the pearl fish trying to move in? It HAD moved in! Ugg couldn't believe it.

So irritating. So maddening. Positively INFURIATING. This happened to sea cucumbers. This was NOT a story. This was TRUE FACT. Thin pearl fishes moved into sea cucumbers. Thin pearl fishes did this all the time because they were lazy! They liked to sit somewhere safe and warm without doing much of anything.

This was an outrage!

His butt used as a house? By a fish? Really? REALLY?

Ugg got madder and madder until he could not hold it anymore. He was so furious. Was he going to put up with this the rest of his life? Was he going to house a fish? In his butt? Why? He felt as if he was going to explode.

Then he shocked himself.

He DID explode.

And when he exploded... EVERYTHING came out of his behind.

His stomach. His guts. And the... fish.

Well now, Ugg thought.

Wasn't that something?

He could blow when he was mad and when he did, he could expel the fish that had crawled into him. He had ejected the fish thrown him out in one big explosion.

Ugg was thrilled. Oh, that was so satisfying! Only thing however. Now he had no gut.

He would have to grow a fresh, new gut.

Well, Ugg thought, smiling broadly.

I can do THAT, but not many other animals can.

When you come to think of that, I'm quite special, Ugg thought.

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Moral of the story: Be as fierce as a sea cucumber. Be like Ugg.

If something takes all your guts, don’t worry. You will grow new ones.