A thingamajig came in a box,
a cardboard crate that barely locks,
so as it waited on my lanai
it wiggled out with hopes to try
to skip, skedaddle, flee, or fly,
to slip away like a cunning fox
and laze itself in the near boondocks.

It got as far as the end of the road,
where there it met a horny toad
who didn't make a single sound
but dallied there on desert ground
hoping the thing would walk around
and not become a darn freeload
who needed help from a horny toad.

The thingamajig asked for directions
to the nearest boondocks' intersections
to stash its bells and whistles deep
and maybe find a spot to sleep,
to dream of fluffy bleating sheep,
unwind, unplug its wired connections
and separate into thing-y sections.

The horny toad continued to lie
soundless beneath the desert sky
hoping the thing would bugger off,
but the thing stayed put, as if to scoff,
and then it rattled an annoying cough,
so the toad could no way justify
ignoring the thingamajig's pleading cry.

The toad was riled, but came to realize
the thingamajig had to close its eyes,
recharge its parts, its bells and hoops,
untangle its knots, un-loop its loops,
put back some oomph in its ally-oops,
and so in a reluctant compromise
the toad helped the thingamajig revitalize.

The morning next, the horny toad
had disappeared from the end of the road.
The thingamajig gathered its parts,
but couldn't recall what stops and starts
its thing-y mind, its two chrome hearts.
And so it moved in default mode
back to my porch on my abode

where the jumbled box of loose obstructions
of cardboard lay in torn reductions.
The "This End Up" was pointed down,
now yellow, the box had lost its brown,
the shipping tape dangled like a frown.
The thingamajig had varied constructions,
but in all the debris, it had lost the instructions.

So with its parts all cattywampus,
the thingamajig, without gale or pompous
settled back into a disheveled heap,
forgetting to count the bleating sheep
before it shut down in eternal sleep.

And what became of the horny toad?
It met a chicken and crossed the road.