Off-Kilter

Parable of the Prodigal Buffalo: As you know, one of our primary missions at Off-Kilter is to keep you informed about the coming worldwide animal rebellion to overthrow humans. While the rest of the media focus on plunging stock markets and terrorists in the Middle East, we zero in on the real threats to national security, such as Bart, who is described by Tucson authorities as 5 feet tall, with curly dark brown hair--and weighing about 2,000 pounds.

According to the Arizona Daily Star, the wily buffalo busted out of a ranch holding pen on Aug. 22 and eluded numerous attempts at capture, including the use of Oreos and watermelon as bait, and the hushed pleas of a “buffalo whisperer,” who tried to convince the bison to turn himself in.

As a last resort, one woman volunteered to don a buffalo head and skins to lure the AWOL beast home, but the ruse wasn’t necessary. Early Thursday, after four days on the run, Bart was roped by a couple of cowboys and tugged back to captivity with a truck.

“We’re going to have a party to celebrate,” owner Doc Heidemann told us shortly after Bart’s return. “This is a happy ending.”

Or is it? According to our sources, Bart is just the first wave--a test run, if you will, of a fiendish animal plot to escape from cages the world over and then unite for a full-scale assault on humankind.

Heidemann’s last words tell the real story: “He’s back in his pen, but I could swear he’s got a smirk on his face.”

Loser of the Week: We’re a little worried about making this week’s award a three-way tie. What if there’s an unexpected loser shortage next week? Yeah, right. Here are this week’s winning losers:

* People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, for demanding that General Mills cancel plans to put a champion bass fisherman on boxes of Wheaties this fall. “Tricking small animals into impaling themselves on hooks and ripping them from their homes--from the comfort of an expensive boat--requires no athletic skills whatsoever,” PETA snarled. Oh, really? PETA must not have heard about that Slovenian angler who recently hooked a fish so huge that he drowned while trying to reel it in.

* Loser No. 2 is the anonymous couple paying $2.3 million to Texas A&M; University to clone their dog, Missy. What a travesty. We wouldn’t pay a dime over $500,000 to reproduce a pet (especially with an animal revolt on the horizon). Off-Kilter also wishes to bestow a special academic integrity award on Texas A&M; for agreeing to the project.

* Our final loser is Mother Teresa. The hype surrounding the one-year anniversary of her death--the barrage of rock star tribute albums, commemorative Franklin Mint plates, Mother Teresa Beanie Babies, Mother Teresa screen savers, Mother Teresa dolls and People magazine cover stories--is threatening to overshadow the true selfless saint, Princess Diana.

Best Supermarket Tabloid Headline: “300 Wooden Dummies Burned at the Stake!” (Weekly World News)

This wasn’t recently, unfortunately. According to WWN, during the Middle Ages, when ventriloquism was rightly considered a form of black magic--Germany executed 1,500 ventriloquists and ordered at least 300 of their evil wooden companions torched.

* Roy Rivenburg’s e-mail address is roy.rivenburg@latimes.com.

Unpaid Informants: Martin Miller, Newsday