Monday, August 07, 2006
So an elephant buys some dog food ...
From the RoundTable blog
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This morning, for your reading pleasure, I offer a couple of animal stories (note: not cat stories, this time, but animal stories) received via e-mail.
I do not know their sources or their truthfulness (indeed, I doubt their truthfulness), but retell them here so that you can (a) fall down laughing, (b) spurt coffee from your nose or (c) instantly decide to write me and tell me I have neither taste nor conscience.
First story:
A young man who spent several years in Africa as a Peace Corps volunteer was walking alone through the bush when he rounded a curve in the road and came upon a bull elephant. Terrified, the young man stopped dead in his tracks. Bull elephants are notoriously unpredictable and dangerous.
And this one was standing on three legs, intermittently trying to put down his fourth leg, obviously hurt. From where the young man stood, he could see that the elephant had a huge and nasty thorn imbedded in the sole of this fourth foot.
This was a good-hearted young man; he was a Peace Corps volunteer. Nevertheless, he stood motionless for a long time. Wouldn't it be terribly dangerous to try to help an injured bull elephant?
Finally, he could bear it no longer, and he began to approach the elephant, slowly, slowly. The elephant allowed this, until the man was right by the injured foot. With the greatest of care, he began working the thorn out of the elephant's flesh. At last, the thorn was free, and the young man stepped away from the elephant. A good distance away.
The elephant touched his foot to the grounded, tested it, found it relieved, trumpeted in apparent relief and bull-elephant glory, and disappeared into the bush.
Years later, this same man, now not-so-young, visited a zoo. There, in the elephant park, he spotted an older bull elephant. This elephant seemed to notice the man, too. He stared at the man, then lifted one foot, put it down; stared, lifted the foot, put it down. Could it possibly be the same elephant? He trumpeted and repeated the motions. It must be the same.
Entranced, the man climbed into the elephant's enclosure and walked toward this old friend, this bull elephant whom he had once rescued. Again, the elephant trumpeted, as if in greeting. Then he ... picked up the man in his trunk, and threw him against the wall, killing him instantly.
Probably not the same elephant, after all.
Second story:
The owner of a Labrador retriever was standing in line at Wal-Mart with a 50-pound bag of Purina dog food. The woman behind him perkily asked, "Oh, do you have a dog?"
Well, duh, thought the man.
But he said, "No, I'm starting the Purina diet again. Although I probably shouldn't, since last time I ended up in intensive care. Still, I lost 30 pounds."
Thirty pounds! The woman was immediately interested. As were many other people standing in line with these two. "How does it work?" she wanted to know.
So he told her, "You just load your pockets with Purina, and whenever you're hungry you eat a couple of nuggets. It's a complete diet."
The woman was shocked. "But you ended up in intensive care," she said. "Did it poison you?"
Oh, no, the man answered. "I was sitting in the middle of the road licking myself and a car hit me."
