In Which Pooh Goes Visiting and Gets Into a Tight Place
- Pooh is walking through the forest one day, humming to himself—a hum that he invented while doing calisthenics that morning. Why a stuffed bear needs calisthenics, only a young child can explain.
- He stumbles across a hole in the ground, which belongs to his friend Rabbit.
- According to Pooh, visiting Rabbit means getting to eat free food and have someone listen to his nonsense songs. Is Pooh the ideal guest? No. But at least he's clear about what he wants.
- Pooh calls down to ask if anybody's home. Rabbit answers back with the old classic, "No!" (Cue child laughter.)
- If your child doesn't get the joke, don't worry. Pooh uses his fool proof reasoning to conclude that someone must indeed be home.
- For some reason, Rabbit keeps refusing to greet Pooh, but our hero persists.
- Turns out, Rabbit is claiming to be off visiting his friend Pooh Bear. But when Pooh reveals that he's the very same Pooh Bear that Rabbit is "visiting,"Rabbit cordially invites him in.
- Pooh gets offered honey and bread to snack on. Not wanting to be greedy (read: only wanting the sweet sweet golden stuff), he refuses the bread and gets to work on the honey.
- Before long, he finishes the whole pot.
- Having gotten what he's come for, Pooh decides to be on his way.
- Pooh begins to squeeze out of the rabbit hole. Unfortunately, he's gotten a bit rounder in the stomach-ular region since his honey binge, and he gets stuck half-way out.
- Rabbit hops out the back way and tries to give him a paw (Get it? Give him a paw. Okay, it's not our best...).
- But Pooh is stuck. He, of course, blames it on the small doors and not on his gluttony.
- Rabbit hops over to the other end of the forest to fetch Christopher Robin (the character) for help.
- CR suggests pushing Pooh back into the hole, but Rabbit very politely (read: passive-aggressively) suggests that as happy as he is to have Pooh as a visitor, the bear might be more comfortable back in his own home. Faraway from the hole in the ground. In a tree. At the other side of the forest. For Pooh's sake. Sure.
- So CR decides that the only course of action to is wait exactly one week for Pooh to get thin again (yes, Pooh can lose weight as well as we can gain it...maybe that's why he does calisthenics.
- Good friends that they are, CR offers to read to Pooh while they wait, and Rabbit asks if he can use Pooh's legs as towel hooks, since they're just hanging there anyway.
- So it goes, and after one week it's time to pull again.
- Like an old folktale CR grabs Pooh, Rabbit grabs CR, and all Rabbit's friends and relations grab Rabbit. They pull and they pull and out comes Winnie-the-Pooh.
- Rabbit and everyone go toppling over like any classic slapstick comedy shtick.
- And Pooh casually goes on his way humming and walking through the forest.