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Jimmy K. heard of the eating establishment known as Tadpoles and decided
to give it a try one sultry evening in mid-August. The restaurant was in a nondescript part of town, really quite
close to an everyman's suburbian neighborhood. It was an easy place to drive by if you did not know it was there.
Jimmy finished his work week and left a little after four, intending to find this new place to treat himself for
a hard week's work. The directions he had been given were a bit inaccurate, but he found Tadpoles fairly easily.
He pulled his later model automobile into the parking lot, resting the driver's side wheel on the white line, while
leaving the rear wheel a good ¾ of a foot off the line. A song he loved had just come on the radio, and
he noticed a couple of nice-looking women getting out of a car at the other end of the parking lot. With some discreet
movements, he managed to turn up his radio and open his door just as they walked by, in an effort to impress them
with his musical tastes. After they had passed completely oblivious to Jimmy's existence, he nonchalantly switched
off the radio, grabbed his key, and followed at what he considered a proper distance. It was Jimmy K. plus just
a little swagger as an onlooker might have observed.
Jimmy had not come to the restaurant to find a date however. The women entered Tadpoles weather-worn double doors,
never even having noticed Jimmy's affectations. Jimmy also quickly forgot about his act, and went about the business
of treating himself to dinner.
He was surprised that so many people were already eating as it seemed to him a little early. The waiter put him
in a far corner, not without ambience, at a table for two. He recieved a menu, and began scanning, asking for some
water without even looking up. There was something that seemed a bit strange to Jimmy as he looked around, but
he wasn't sure just what.
After a minute or two, the waiter arrived with a glass of water. Jimmy wasn't used to getting an already-poured
water, expecting instead to have a glass put in front of him, and to have the waiter pour out the refreshing liquid
from a pitcher replete with ice. Still, he hadn't paid too much attention to the glass itself, at least at first.
The waiter politely asked if Jimmy was ready with his order, prompting him to resume his search for his dinner
meal at an accelerated pace. The waiter stood there quietly, waiting for Jimmy's order, then suggested he could
come back in a few moments. "No, actually I think I know what I would like," he said. "I'll have
the grilled salmon with a Ceasar salad please." "Very well sir," the waiter replied. "Would
you like anything else?" Jimmy said he didn't and the waiter went away. It was not long before he made a discovery
that set off a chain of events that forever changed the course of history - at least in that little corner of that
little town.
What Jimmy noticed was a dark blot squiggling around in his water. He looked around and saw that everyone had the
same little black squiggle in their water. "That is what was not right earlier," he reflected. Some were
even drinking their water, with the little spot coming very close to their mouths. Jimmy furrowed his brow in puzzlement,
then went in for a closer look. What he discovered shocked him to his very core. For darting to and fro in the
liquid that was ordained to provide him with refreshment was none other than a living infant amphibian, otherwise
known as a tadpole. He summoned the waiter immediately.
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