No one really knew for sure why there was an owl in the refrigerator.
Taggart, a thin, nervous man who worked in Records, claimed that it was a sinister message. From whom, or precisely what sort of sinister, he could not say, but he maintained that there had been a series of killings in Boston or someplace a few years ago and a strange object had been left in each person's home.
His assistant Greta said that there was no reason to get hysterical.
Smitton, the stolid Assistant Supervisor, pointed out that there was surely a perfectly logical reason for there to be an owl in the refrigerator. Perhaps someone was going straight to some sort of an event that required a chilled stuffed owl.
Greta thought that frankly, that seemed even less likely than Taggart's idea.
Old Chips insisted that it was a prank from one of the interns. Get them all the time. Had one every year. Had to give this one points for creativity, though. Usually they just put sugar in the salt shakers in the cafeteria or pinned lewd notes to the memo board.
Whatever the reason, the fact remained that the end result of someone*s apparently amateur taxidermy (the glass eyes were set very strangely) was sitting in the office refrigerator, covering the ancient Jello stain and eyeing someone's tuna salad.
The other question, of course, was what to do with it.
It was distinctly uncomfortable to have it sitting in the refrigerator. Most everyone had removed their lunches from the fridge already, but they didn't look enthusiastic about eating them. Who knew how long the thing had been in there, molting? However, they were loathe to remove it as well, and not just, though perhaps primarily, because no one wanted to touch it.
What if someone really did need a chilled stuffed owl?
