a/n: This is the last piece I wanted to write on my vacation. So, I am a happy camper.

This story was inspired by an off thing that Locrian wrote in Rising. If you haven't read that story, do so! Anyway, although I am very much a Buck fan, he is sadly not in this story. Also I haven't had this proof read. So, please excuse the mistakes. I also don't like the ending of it, but I didn't want it on a sad note. I don't know how much time has passed between Ice Age I and Ice Age III. I would assume that it takes a mamma mammoth to carry a baby about the same time as an elephant, and that's about two years. So, that is where the four year thing about Manny and Sid is coming from.

I never understood why we need disclaimers on this site. After all, it is fanfiction. The whole point is that it is not our work. But, it would be really cool if Dreamworks was to check this site out and use this bit in Ice Age 4.

Bath Time for a Dirty Sloth

Sid was a slothful sloth even by sloth lowly standards. He was no different in his personal hygiene. Manny knew this when he first met the particularly odorous outcast a few years ago when they met during the Great Migration to the South. In the four years that he had known the fat, lazy, and above all smelly little pest, had he never seen the sloth bathe himself or do anything to clean out his fur, except to wipe off the occasional dung he tended to miraculously find in the most obscure places and step in it. Even the macho Diego spent time to clean himself, albeit he spent more time with this chore than most mammals should, but Manny really knew nothing about feline natures.

Sid was in his most time consuming activity. He was stretched out on a rock in the mammoth's cave and snoring quite loudly . . . the picture of complete relaxation. Every once and awhile he scratched at his brown fur that matched the mammoth's color at this time of the year. Several spores of brown fungus fell to the floor of the cave, where it scurried away to the shade of a safer haven. The sloth smacked his lips and rolled over and fell on the floor. He left behind a greasy spot on the rock where he once laid. Manny hitched up his trunk as he lifted his lip in disgust at the released stench. The deranged weasel they had met in the dinosaur underworld had the scent pinpointed properly. It was indeed like a buzzard's behind had fallen off and sprayed by a dozen skunks.

"Whoa! What died?" Diego asked as he slunk in behind Manny.

The mammoth jumped noticeably at the sound and involuntarily let go of the breath that he was holding so that he wouldn't have to smell the stench. He had to gag.

"If you don't like it, then do something about it," Ellie said as she came up on his other side, followed by her daughter.

"Uncle Sid! PU! PU!" exclaimed the baby Peaches as she stepped on her trunk.

"Yeah, you said it, our adorable little niece!" Crash exclaimed as he appeared on her back.

"It is like the stench of a rhino's dung after eating wilted greens for two weeks and left to sit out in the open sun for four weeks and urinated on by a pack of wild sabers, no offense, Diego," added Eddie, who appeared on the baby mammoth's other shoulder.

"Whoa! Good one, bro!" Crash cried out as he gave the other possum a high five.

Ellie shook her head and picked up the offensive creature by its ankles with her trunk. Having been in the position more often than not, Sid didn't even snort any in his slumber. The female mammoth held the sloth out at trunk's length and marched out of the cave. Peaches obediently wrapped her trunk around her mother's tail and followed like a modern elephant. The males looked at each other and shrugged. They followed the females out of the cave.

Ellie walked down to the waterway and held Sid over it. The sloth continued to snore and made some incriminating remarks that indicated that his dreams were not to be heard by audiences of all ages. Crash and Eddie each took an ear to cover on their niece. The mother aardvark with her young were at the waters edge getting a drink. She looked up with wide eyes of horror at the mammoth and her intentions.

"Oh, good lord! Don't drop that in our water! We need to drink from here, and we don't want it soiled!"

A beaver, who was building a damn at the other end of the water way looked up at her words. A deep blush crossed his cheeks. He didn't say a word, but he began to whistle suspiciously.

"Ick!" cried a shovelmouth. "Go dump him in a pit somewhere else. Preferably one full of rattlesnakes."

"Hey!" Ellie exclaimed happily. "What a great idea!"

"I thought you kind of liked Sid . . . in that sort of icky way that women like homeless puppies with no place to go," Manny remarked.

"Crash! Eddie!" she ordered, ignoring her mate. "Go did a hole deep enough for our slothful friend.

The two possums stood up on the baby mammoth's back and saluted their big sister. They hopped down off their niece and set to work. Within minutes they had a ditch large enough to effectively bury their friend, if they so desired. Ellie dropped her sleeping load on its head. Sid only twitched briefly and said a few other risque things and kicked his right foot like a happy dog. He turned over and curled himself into a fetal position and sucked on one of his claws like a baby. "Manny, we need water now," she ordered.

"Oh good grief! A wet Sid is too horrible to think about! How exactly is this going to make the air quality any better around here?" he argued.

"We're going to bathe him," she answered as if it was the most logical thing in the world.

"I ain't cleaning him," Diego stated firmly. "I've had him in my mouth before, and I am still trying to get rid of the awful taste!"

"Oh, don't worry, dear. I have a use for that rough tongue of yours," the mother mammoth replied happily as she led her husband back to the waterway to get a trunkful of water. The saber only watched after them and shook his head. How did he get himself into these kinds of messes.

"No arguing with Momma," Eddie reprimanded the tiger from the back end of Peaches. Diego wondered if anyone would notice if one or both of the possums turned up missing.

The mammoths soon returned to the hole. All three of them sprayed the hole full of water and on their sleeping adversary. Sid woke up with a scream of pure terror. He jumped to escape the watery trap, but Diego casually swatted him back down into the trap. Things were only going to get worse for the dirty sloth. Crash and Eddie produced two branches from a bush that looked remarkably like modern day scrub brushes. With a signal from their leader, they dove in for their scrubbing duty on the floppy green thing, that was more brown than green this season.

"Bath time for Uncle Sid!" cried the excited Peaches as she giggled.

A crowd of animals surrounded the scene. A mole hog looked to his brother, who in turn looked to his other brother, straight down the line of all seven of them, including grandpa. With a nod, they gave a cheer and rooted the possums on with their endeavors. The other animals joined in with encouragement. The sloth finally escaped the two possums. Once on dry land, he was bodily squashed down by the tiger's massive claw.

"Diego, old buddy . . ." he started.

Looking up pleadingly to Ellie, the saber sighed in resignation. He licked at the ruffled fur of the wet, but cleaner sloth. Although he expected the taste of ten day old dead rat carcass he had gotten during his first Sid taste, he found it not so bad. Actually, it awoke the sleeping carnivore in him, but Manny hit him on the head with his trunk before there was Sloth on the evening menu.

"He's a friend, remember? We don't eat friends," the mammoth reminded him.

The saber spat him out. Visions of roast sloth garnished in greens disappeared in a puff of smoke. "Yeah . . .right," he answered sheepishly.

Sid finally broke away from his friends. His fur was now a pleasant shade of tan and the air was much fresher, but the sloth was not happy. He picked up chunks of the discarded fungi and mourned the loss of his friends Sally, Paul, Howie, Moe, and Jack. He had known them as mere spores, but they were now gone. He sat down by the bath in dejection for a few moments, as the crowd dispersed in his depression, until Peaches offered him a bunch of dandelions. The sloth's eyes opened wide as he accepted the gift and he immediately forgot his fungi garden.