Can flightless waterfowl fly?

Once upon a time, there was a penguin. This penguin was for sale in a pet store in Tennessee. A man came in, and said "I need me a carrier pijin, you got one of them?" The proprieter allowed as to how he didn't, but he had this nice penguin for sale.

"Will that thare penguin carry a message?"

"I reckon he will," said the proprietor. So the man carried the penguin home and put him in a bird cage and fed him the penguin food the pet store owner had given him, and after a few days, decided to test out his new carrier penguin.

So he put the penguin in the passenger seat of his pickup truck, drove out a few hundred yards from his house, and stopped and tied a message to the penguin's leg. Then he picked up the penguin and threw him out the winder of his pickemup truck. "Fly, litttle penguin!" the man cried. "Fly away home!" The penguin, of course, being a flightless waterfowl, merely fell to the ground with a meaty thunk and didn't move.

"Now what is that?" hollered Cousin Cooter from next door.

"Darned carrier penguin bein' lazy," the man replied.

"Well, give him a good switchin'!" Cousin Cooter said.

So the man got a good limber branch from a nearby tree, and swatted the penguin. "Fly!" the man said. "Fly away home!" But the penguin just sat there, beady eyes glazing over.

"Darned critter is *still* being lazy!" the man cried. "What should I do now?"

"Well, guess you better use a bigger stick," Cousin Cooter said. So the man got a bigger stick from a nearby tree, and swatted the penguin. "Fly!", the man said. "Fly away home!" But the penguin just sat there, beady eyes glazed over.

"Kick his butt," Cousin Cooter suggested. "That always makes my young'uns behave." So the man kicked the penguin. The penguin flew a few feet toward the house!

"Why, I guess that might work!" the man said. So he kept kicking the penguin, and every time he kicked the penguin, the penguin flew a few feet, until finally the penguin was on the front porch of the house.

The moral of the story: If your penguin refuses to fly, you're just not kicking him hard enough.

Them's the Tennessee rules, apparently!

But just as punishing a flightless waterfowl hard enough to make him fly ends up with, well, dead bird, the only way to punish an alcoholic enough to make him stop drinking is to punish him so hard that he ends up, well, dead. What next, the death penalty for alcoholics in Tennessee?

Alrighty, then!

- Badtux the Snarky Penguin