True Confessions: The Big Elephant in the Room by Lane Smith

"Can we talk about the big elephant in the room?"

"The Big Elephant? As in the BIG Problem? I was expecting this!

Because I ate all the crunch-nut ice cream? But what if you had a nut allergy? What then?

A friend can't take that kind of a chance!"

Oh, no! Two donkey friends seem to be about to have a heart-to-heart over their relationship problems, e.g., the ice cream eater's insensitivity. And when the matter is brought up with an apparent bit of circumlocution by the party of the first part, the party of the second part is obviously suffering from the guilts over his frequent unfairness. But he can justify all his behavior. He eats all the ice cream to spare his friend a nut allergy attack--even though he has no reason to believe he has any allergies.

"No! Wait! Is "the Big Elephant" your video game? I was going to return that! Eventually!"

Or could "the Big Elephant" be his choosing the best bike and leaving the baby trike for his friend, or picking his friend last for soccer, or for making fun of his buddy's Rainbow Pony backpack, or the unmentionable swimming pool incident? How about the sticky situation when when he left his Super Glue stick in his friend's chair?

Or could it be that time he told Haley that his friend once laughed so hard that he peed in his pants? Oh, dear!

It seems the party of the second part has a lot to feel guilty about!

"NO! NO! NO!" I don't care about all that! I was just asking about the big elephant in the room."

(Oh, that elephant. The strange white elephant watching TV from the sofa.)

"Oh, that elephant. That's Stanley."

(Pause)

"You really told Haley I peed my pants?"

Now there really is a big white elephant in the room.

Noted artist Lane Smith's usual elongated, quirky drawings add much to the humor of his Big Elephant in the Room, The a hilarious tale of two friends, one thoughtless and the other long suffering, who finally get an unexpected chance to clear the air.

Lane Smith is also the celebrated illustrator of several of Jon Scieszka's award-winning stories, including The True Story of the Three Little Pigs, The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales, and Math Curse.