Missing Mule Deer Program Nixed

(Manana) A fledgling search effort aimed at locating and returning lost or runaway mule deer to their homes has been scrapped after only two seasons. The well-financed plan ended without fanfare after biological social workers failed to impact the status of so much as one of the forlorn.

In its defense, the recovery strategy was hampered by savior syndrome with a side of pettiness. Like many upstart directions the program seemed more about pecking order and hierarchy than desperate mule deer. After a few months insiders were asking whether anyone was taking the matter seriously at all.

Now most of the sensitive date is stored in sugar beet crates in an unmarked basement office of some grandiose cathedral to implied democracy.

Many good Samaritans, working overtime, say the problem lies within familiarity in that every mule deer looks the same.

“There are large and small, fat and lean, young and old but basically they all have that same stupid look on their face,” said Alana Jardin, an animal behaviorist on loan from Colombia. “We used to have deer problems too but in 1600 we relaxed our hunting restrictions and allowed the second generation of Conquistadors to “have at it”. Clearly after 400 years there are almost no deer and almost no deer to locate or recover,” she said.

“Flank ‘em,” says Antler Tom Gilhooley, who favors putting a mule deer in charge of the entire investigation. “Contending that all mule deer look the same is the most ignorant, bigoted, sexist, even polarizing statement I have ever heard. I intend to go home, tune up my Martin, and write a country song about it.”

-Tommy Middlefinger