"So, what in the world are you babbling about, Frank?!" John asked with a yawn, as he opened the door of his home to his brother. "It's just after one in the morning! This better be good!"
"Bro...you're not going to believe this, but seein' is believin'!" Frank answered, as he rushed past John straight into his "man cave" in the rear of the house.
John followed, still skeptical. "Man, if you're yankin' my chain..." he muttered. But, truth be told, he was intrigued. Frank wasn't one for practical jokes, so there must be something to be excited about. The old child-like intrigue grew in John. The same feeling he often had as a child as Frank's excitement about some new project boiled over and affected him.
"So...where are Patches and Fred?" Frank asked, referring to Rachel's cat and John's dog. "They normally sleep back here don't they."
"Patches and Fred?" John said, confused. "They're sleepin' in the laundry room tonight. Why?"
"Just follow me," Frank answered.
He led the way into the laundry room where Fred was stretched out on a small mat with the cat sleeping on a stool just alongside.
"Now, put your hand on this." Frank held out a silver device that looked like nothing that John had seen before. It had a few buttons like a remote control, but the shape was different than any remote he'd ever seen. The device was small enough to fit in your pocket, but had enough strange angles and curves to make it look almost alien.
"It's very important that you put your hand on this," Frank repeated. "If you're not touching it, you won't see the change...at least that's my understanding."
"OK...OK...I'm touching it."
"Great! I'm going to hold it and activate it. You just hold it on the bottom," Frank excitedly said. And with that he pointed the device at Fred and pushed a large red button on the device that was shaped like a lightning bolt. Then he turned the device toward Patches and pushed the button again.
John couldn't believe his eyes, but almost instantaneously he saw Fred's head, reduced in size, atop Patches' body lying on the stool. He looked down and saw his cat's head, larger and proportionate now, atop his middle sized hound dog's body.
"Good gosh, man! What the #$#%% did you just do?!" he proclaimed, half angry and half excited.
"Nothing that you should be concerned about," Frank smiled as he turned toward John. "Your pets are none the wiser. Go ahead and call Fred."
John leaned over and patted his knee..."Come here Fred, come here, boy!" The hybrid creature with the dog-head and cat-body immediately sprang to its feet jumped off the stool and came over to John and licked his hand.
Meanwhile the cat-headed animal got up and languidly headed for the litter box, a place where Fred would never go near.
"What we have here, my friend, is something incredible beyond words!" Frank said.
"You say you just found this?" John asked.
"I did," Frank said. "I left early today, very angry. You see John... I was let go today. With the economy the way it is, they had to make cut-backs. I was downright pissed, but on the way outside, there this was, on the ground, obviously dropped by mistake. Now that I see what it can do, I'm not returnin' it to those bastards. We've got to figure out what use we can make of it!"
"What do you mean 'use'?" John said.
"You don't know the half of it, John," Frank grinned. "This don't just work on animals."
With that...
