They're Baaaaack...or at least One of Them Is

As we last left the Seymour/Jane saga (my pet rock and pet earette of corn), Seymour/Jane spent a year plus on Shiraishi Island in the Inland Sea, Japan; they then went to spend roughly a year plus on a farm in Ohio (Amy Chavez's parents). From there, something went turrible wrong: Jane went missing.

And local authorities apparently viewed Seymour as a suspect. That was about ten days ago.

This past week, Seymour unexpectedly showed up back home, in what I initially assumed was a very crafty jail break by a pet rock that managed to disguise hisself as a UPS package. After assuring myself that it was, in fact, Seymour, I returned him to his pre-Japan favorite perch (overlooking the TV), and asked him directly just WTF was going on with Jane.

Seymour's story -- incredibull as it sounds -- has a ring of the absurdly surreal to it:

- Seymour steadfastly denies having had anything to do with Jane's disappearance; he claims "she (Jane) just ran off one day". I sarcastically asked Seymour how an earette of corn, with a platform screwed in her butt, could just up and "run off". That got a look from Seymour that conveyed, without words, "the same way you could expect to ask a pet rock to explain the disappearance of an earette of corn, and actually expect an answer". Smart ass.

- When Seymour was brought into the local police station for questioning, he claims he was left in a sparse "interview room" without access to a phone, legal counsel or a TV (he says), while just outside the door, he could hear a shift supervisor and a detective arguing:

SS: Just go in there and see what you can get out of him.

D: You're kidding me, right?

SS: No, I'm not kidding...

D: You actually expect me to go in there and try to get a confession out of a piece of stone?

SS: You've been trained to handle stonewalling by suspects, Detective. That's your job.

D: It ain't April Fools, anymore...

SS: Stop arguing and get in there...

D: *#@*@$*#(@*!

- So the detective came into the interview room, stared at Seymour for a minute, back at the one-way mirror behind him, then back at Seymour, sighed, and began to grudgingly question him:

D: Okay...so what's your full name?

S: Seymour.

D: And you claim to be a pet rock?

S: Yes sir.

D: And how long have you been..*snort*...a pet rock?

S: About 8 years.

D: And what were you..*cough*..before you became a pet rock?

S: A decorative landscape rock.

D: I can't F***ING BELIEVE I'M DOING THIS!!!!!!!

S: Doing what?

D: Talking to an inanimate piece of...of...geology!

S: I am NOT an inanimate piece of geology! Don't take me for granite!

D: *slams notepad to floor* THAT DOES IT!!! *the detective started tearing the room apart, looking for a hidden speaker, then stormed out of the room*

- After that, Seymour was placed in an Evidence storage room, and left there, until (he says) a milk cow came in -- which Seymour realized was Amy, disguised in her holstein cow suit (see above photo), which Amy later told Seymour wouldn't be viewed as unusual in rural Ohio -- and thus disguised, easily smuggled Seymour out, spiriting him directly to a UPS Store, and sending him home.

As for the mystery of Jane, Seymour has his own theory: that Jane eloped with another Moooo! Bar ornament she met in 2007 -- Head (see other photo above) -- and that Jane probably hitched a ride back to Shiraishi Island, to be reunited with Head.

Hearing this, I expected Seymour to be the kind of bummed that a rejected lover usually is; but Seymour seemed rather unmoved by it all, saying that the celebrity status that he and Jane had shared at the Moooo! Bar seemed to go to her ear, and Seymour became to her "little more than a grain of beach sand, albeit a rather obese one".

With that, I let Seymour watch a DVD of The Dirty Dozen, and all was well with Seymour once more.

In the meantime, Seymour did try to place a "Craigslist" ad for a new friend, but I kaboshed it, for obvious reasons; and I'm not about to take another trip to Iowa, just to purloin a potentially two-timing earette of corn.

Developing...