As the dawn exploded across the landscape, Henry was already hard at work.
He moved his sinewy muscles with determination, digging into the side of the hollowed out tree. Bark and dirt and wood dust was flying about the area. Henry was a honey badger and he was onto a meal. Henry usually spent his mornings lounging just outside his burrow, which he had stolen from some owls. But, not this morning. This morning he was toiling away, paying no heed to the chunks of old tree passing his face nor to the bees that were busily stinging him.
Henry was digging into the tree to steal the bees honey and the tasty bee larvae that was inside the honeycomb. Henry was a kleptomaniac. He wasn't even hungry, having spent the entire night previous snacking on green lizards and brown snakes, he just had this insatiable compulsion to steal. Once he reached the honeycomb inside the tree, he would drag it back to his stolen burrow and lay there, lackadaisically licking honey and his bee stings, spreading the antibiotic effect of the honey into the wounds.
As he was finishing his digging adventure, he noticed movement over near his burrow mound. It was that pretty female honey badger from across the river. He evaluated her with one eye and his disheveled appearance with the other. He really liked Priscilla, and, he had a hunch that she liked him back. And, here she was, right on top of his house! He could barely contain his excitement at this new development!
He freed the honeycomb from the tree at last and hurriedly brushed and clawed the tree bark and moist, dark earth from his fur. He lifted the beehive in his jaws, and, still ignoring the stinging bees, brought his prize back to his burrow. He tried to act nonchalant as he greeted Priscilla, summoning his best macho badger voice and failing miserably. He said "Hey, Priscilla."
What she heard was "squeak illa" She giggled a little and returned his hello in her best seductive badger voice. "HI, handsome Henry, is that bees nest for me?" She knew that he liked her and that it was tradition to bestow gifts on the honey badger you loved.
"Of, of course you can have it." Henry stammered, pushing the hive nearer to Priscilla. He gave her his best grin and she returned it. Now Henry was really worked up. "Do you want to come in my house?" he managed bravely.
She declined, stating "I don't want to eat this in front of you, I am shy about eating messy things, I will take it back to my place and eat it. When I am finished, I will meet you at the river and we can hang out." With that, she grabbed up the bee hive and trotted away.
Henry, lovestruck, went down to the river to get a head start on waiting for Priscilla. He would wait a very long time, for, as you see, Priscilla was also a kleptomaniac. Except her obsession was stealing hearts.
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