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Bradley the beaver was a gifted civil engineer, but he suffered from acute geometric perfectionism. His greatest goal in life was to build a dam that was a perfect, unblemished, mathematically exact circle. All other beavers built messy, rambling, zig-zagging dams. Bradley found these to be a disgrace.

His business partner was Murray, a lazy muskrat who was more interested in napping on floating logs than in structural integrity.

"Murray," Bradley instructed, tapping a tiny, wooden compass on the blueprints, "I need these corner sticks placed at precisely 45-degree radial increments to maintain the integrity of the arc."

"Yeah, sure, Brad," Murray mumbled, yawning. He then grabbed a massive, tangled bush and slammed it haphazardly into the water, shouting, "There! Looks good enough!"

"Good enough is the enemy of perfection!" Bradley wailed. He spent three hours dismantling Murray's sloppy section, only to find the water level had risen.

He tried a new approach. He marked the perfect circular outline using smooth pebbles. "Now, Murray, only place sticks between the stones. Do not move the stones!"

Murray, hungry and bored, picked up a pebble, tossed it into the water like a skipping stone, and replaced it with a bright orange piece of trash that read, "SODA." He then built his section with sticks sticking out at every possible angle.

Bradley, looking at the horrifying, lopsided creation, had a meltdown. "That looks like a badly drawn oval! And is that... a soda wrapper?"

"It's structural trash," Murray explained. "Modern design. Plus, the circle is an overrated shape. It doesn't allow for comfortable, rectangular naps."

Bradley was determined. He pulled out his protractor and started measuring every single stick, pushing and trimming them until the curves started to look right. He worked all night, moving logs with his teeth and his tail, trying to erase Murray's geometric sins.

By dawn, the dam wasn't perfect, but it was very close—a beautiful, almost-circular monument of dedication. Murray woke up, looked at the neat, round shape, and frowned.

"It looks cold," Murray complained. "It's too perfect. I'm going to ruin it." He then pulled out one crucial stick, causing a small, deliberate leak.

Bradley glared at him. "Why?"

"Because," Murray said, tucking himself into the breach, "now I have a small, cozy, personal waterfall sound effect right next to my bedroom." Bradley sighed and decided that if he couldn't achieve perfection, he would settle for a dam that was 98% circular and 2% obnoxious muskrat hammock.