Part One

"Hey Kanga what's cooking babe?" Tigger asked one fall evening as he dribbled a basketball through Kanga's kitchen.

"A sprout and cherry fig casserole," Kanga replied.

"Oh sick," Tigger wrinkled up his nose with disgust. "I think I'll go eat at the 7-11 tonight or order Papa John's."

Tigger rented the apartment over Kanga's garage. Since he usually could barely scrape up enough to pay the rent, Kanga helped him out by offering free dinners. At the first dinner Tigger had had there he knew why it was free. It was tofu chops with seaweed and grilled organic roots. He had such bad gas after, that monks in the Tibetan mountains could smell it. Ever since he had been weary of Kanga's cooking.

"No one asked your opinion," Kanga replied. "It's healthy for you."

"I'll tell you what's healthy," said Tigger. "Letting little Roo come shoot some hoops with me. Where is he? I've hardly seen him lately. He used to be my little homeboy. We'd chill together."

"He's upstairs in his bedchamber on his new computer," said Kanga. "Roo just loves his little Mac. He spends all of his time on it."

"You don't have a problem with this?" Tigger asked.

"Not really," Kanga replied. "He runs around outdoors enough in gym class and he plays little league football. I couldn't be more tickled he's taken such an interest in the computer. There is so much he can learn with his Encarta Encyclopedia, and last week I bought him some really great software about space."

"Computer?" Tigger repeated and wrinkled his nose in even more disgust then he had just did over sprout and cherry fig casserole. "You mean computer like Bill Gates?"

"Yes," Kanga replied. "Don't tell me you don't know what a computer is."

"I know what a computer is," said Tigger. "Little nerdy whiz kids like to sit and play with them all day. You can't let Roo become one of these kids."

"Bill Gates was one of those kids," Kanga replied. "I wouldn't be upset if Roo turned out like Bill Gates. There is a web site all about plate tectonics. I think I'm going to tell Roo to check it out after dinner. With his new computer and AOL account Roo can learn about anything. He used the Internet to find all his information on his report about Patrick Henry for history class."

"I just can't see Roo using a computer," Tigger argued.

"Well he sure needs it," said Kanga. "About a month ago Roo brought home his first math and spelling tests and he got a D on the spelling test and failed the math test. I found a math software program at the mall but I needed a computer to go with it. So Geoff and I thought it would be a good idea to get Roo his own computer so he could use all these new educational DVD computer games. We got him a couple of math ones and one on grammar and one on spelling. Plus with the Internet he can look up stuff for reports and read excerpts from The Wall Street Journal and he can print out professional looking reports. He just adores it. He spends all his free time on it. He'll know his multiplication tables so good he'll be number one in the class."

"Whatever," Tigger replied. He still couldn't picture Roo sitting on a computer playing math games on it for hours on end. Roo hated to read anything beyond comic books. The only math he did was counting up his collection of baseball cards. He dribbled the basketball around the kitchen table. Not only could he not picture Roo sitting in his room happily playing some educational video game on a computer, but Tigger was a little jealous. Tigger had spent lots of time with Roo. Since Roo's father was a high power defense attorney, he spent long hours at his law practice, and making TV appearances on On the Record with Greta Van Susteran. This left little time to play with Roo. Tigger was the one who got Roo into little league football and baseball. Since Roo got the coveted role of the team's kicker, Tigger had to show Roo how to kick the football. He had held the ball for countless hours so Roo could practice punting. Whenever Kanga got too scattered and overloaded she always asked Tigger to pick Roo up from practice or school. On these days Tigger always swung Roo by Friendly's for a forbidden-by-Kanga clown sundae drenched in whip cream, caramel, and chocolate sauce. He took Roo to rated R movies, monster truck rallies at the Old Pontiac Silverdome, and to his bud Pete Moss's house. Pete Moss was a nephew of Oakland Raiders wide receiver Randy Moss, and watched over Randy's Hundred Acre Wood vacation cabin while Randy was in California. Randy let Pete use any of the toys he had there, and Pete let his friends use Randy's toys. To a boy like Roo Randy's house was better than FAO Swartz with it's pool table, air hockey table, jet skies, dirt bikes, in home movie theater, and Slushpuppie machine.

Tigger didn't mind doing all of these things for little Roo. He seriosuly believed that he was culturing the boy and Roo boosted his ego. It was nice having a groupie sidekick whom looked up to you and didn't think that your shit stank.

"Please Tigger," Kanga scolded. "No basketball inside the house." Tigger quit dribbling the ball.

"Sorry babe," he muttered.

"Quit calling me babe," Kanga demanded.

That evening after their scrumptious sprout and cherry fig casserole Tigger and Roo hit the road before Kanga brought out some utterly revolting soy flour wheat germ cake contraption that would give everybody the shits for two weeks for dessert. Roo was about to fly up the stairs back to his precious computer but Tigger caught hold of his tail and yanked him over.

"Hey Roo want to go see the new Adam Sandler movie?" He asked.

"Oh gee Tigger I would love to, but I have too much homework for tomorrow. It's a school night anyway."

"We've sneaked out to movies on school nights before," Tigger answered. "That's half the fun."

"I really have too much homework," Roo argued.

"How much homework can a third grader have?" Tigger asked. "It's not like you go to one of those high end prep schools. At Hundred Acre Wood Elementary you don't get that much homework in third grade."

"Well I have a huge paper to do," Roo said.

"That has never stopped you from going out and seeing a movie before," Tigger pointed out. "Your mother told me that you have been doing homework in your room on your computer all afternoon. How can you possibly sit in front of a computer screen doing math problems for hours and hours a day?"

"Mom told you I was doing math problems?" Roo asked.

"Yeah she says all you ever do is play with your math software and look up things in Encarta on your new computer," Tigger replied.

"Oh I ain't doing no math problems," Roo said. "I'm not using Encarta either."

"She says you are," said Tigger.

Roo motioned for Tigger to bend over so Roo could whisper something into his ear.

"Tigger," he whispered. "I haven't played the math game since the day my dad set the computer up for me in my room, and Encarta is still in the box, unopened, uninstalled."

"Then what the hell is so interesting about staring at a computer all day?" Tigger asked.

"Trust me," Roo replied. "The computer is very interesting."