Congratulations on Removing the Thorn!

There aren’t very many lions in the Twin Cities. Sure, there’s a few in the Como Zoo, but they aren’t terribly indiginous to the area and even if they were, people just don’t go out that much without good reason in the midwest.

It’s freezing cold in the winter and searing hot in the summer. Just leaving your home is to risk death from exposure. That’s why so many midwesterners pride themselves on their thick layers of body fat. It helps to insulate them not just from the catty high-school grade social interactions populating the Midwest but from these extremes of temperature as well.

Lions, lazy as they are, find themselves completely fucked by these conditions. The erratic temperatures and the trying social circumstances are just too much for them. The ones the elements don’t kill suffer from a slow, wasting sickness. Excepting, of course, those contained in the safe, controlled environment of the Como Zoo.

Which is why you’ll know something is up when you see a lion sitting in the Hamlin law library on Snelling, flipping through a case law book. He’ll look anxious, which is to be expected, but he won’t appear to be panting or shivering or slowly wasting away. You’ll assume, correctly, that he’s magic, and your natural midwestern nature will force you to pry into his business?

“What wrong?” you’ll say.

He’ll look up from the book with tears in his eyes and clumsily his face with one of his paws.

“Oh, Christ,” he’ll say. “It’s that obvious, isn’t it?”

You’ll nod. “What’s up?”

He’ll shake his head. “It’s this god damn thorn.”

He’ll lift his paw to expose a seven inch railroad spike protruding from his paw. It will appear not to exit the other side, despite being almost entirely imbedded in his body.

“That’s a doozy,” you’ll say, displaying the Midwest’s talent for understatement.

He’ll nod. “And I can’t do a damn thing about it. I’ve got no opposable thumbs and no healthcare.”

You’ll smile.

“Tell you what,” you’ll say, leaning over the table as sultrily as possible. “I think I can help you out.”

The lion will look at you, baffled, but he’ll acquiesce when you ask him back to your apartment and uncork a bottle of wine. He’ll be so drunk and horny that by the time you rip the spike out with a pair of pliers he’ll barely notice. After you dress the wound the two of you will bone and he’ll offer you one wish (natch).

This is how you’ll become the first super hot under 30 Attorney General in American history. Congratulations on that. Oh, and congratulations on removing the thorn. Even though it was less a thorn and more a colossal spike. No good deed goes unrewarded in that magical land that is the midwest, eh?