It seemed like a simple assignment: Feed four gerbils and a fighting fish while the owners were away on vacation. So I went to the house and found everything to be in order. Then I noticed something peculiar. The one gerbil would wrinkle his nose and the other gerbil would wrinkle his nose back. These gerbils were talking to each other in gerbileese! Then it dawned on me, these weren't gerbils at all, they were aliens from a distant planet!! Their plan suddenly became clear. The fighting fish would nip my finger when I fed it, and before I could recover from this, the gerbils would hit me on the head with an empty cereal box. In my dazed state, the gerbils would jump out of the cage and head to Hershey Park. There they would chew their way into the wiring of one of the ferris rides causing it to stop with people stranded at the top unable to get out. The ensuing turmoil would serve as a cover to allow the gerbils to break into the Hershey candy factory and steal their secret formula for making chocolate candy. As a result, nobody would be able to buy Hershey candy bars. This would cause people to become so healthy they would elect Green Party candidates in the November election, and the Green Party would pass a law making it mandatory to eat spinach three meals a day. I owed it to my country to thwart this diabolic plot before it could be carried out. Two meals a day, maybe, but three times would be ridiculous.

So I warned the fish that if he tried anything funny I would bring the neighbor's cat with me the next time I came. He got the message. It just goes to show that you can't be too careful in these kinds of situations.