Thursday, October 02, 2008

who knew?

The following is an actual life event. I could not make this up if I tried

Date: Tuesday
Time: 11 pm
Place: My Kitchen

Tim: Wouldn't it be cool if we had enough money to just randomly buy people crazy gifts. Like hey, here's a giraffe.
ME: That would be awesome.
Time: (does riding motion like on a horse)
ME: What are you doing?
Tim: I'm riding the giraffe I just gave you
ME: How are you riding that?
Tim: On a special saddle
ME: You don't ride a giraffe on a saddle, you just wrap your arms around its neck and get going.
Tim: You can't do that, their necks are too big, your arms would never make it around.
ME: How big do you think they are?
Tim: I don't know.
ME: I'm going to Google it

Action: Googling circumference of a giraffe's neck for 2 hours

ME: I can't believe there is NOTHING on the internet about this. NOTHING.
TIM: Let me try

Action: Time searching internet. He find nothing

ME: That's it. I'm calling the Zoo tomorrow. Someone has to know this

Date: Wednesday
Time: 9:10 am
Place: Work

ME: (leaving a message with the animal education department at the Saint Louis Zoo) Hi, my name is Jessica and I was hoping that you would be able to tell me the average circumference of a a Giraffe's neck. I searched all over the internet and couldn't find anything so I'm hoping that you can help me. Thanks

Date: Wednesday
Time: 11:15 am
Place: Work

Action: I return to my office and see that I have a new voicemail. I listen

Voicemail: Hi Jessica this is Lisa from the Saint Louis Zoo and I was calling you back about your question on the average circumference of a giraffe's neck. We checked with our curator who has over 20 years experience working with giraffes and she was useless. We cross referenced every animal book we can find, and again they were useless. No one has ever thought to measure a giraffe's neck before. You must be a genius. Thanks for stumping us!

(Ok, so the last bit about the voicemail is a little exaggerated, but you get the point. Some how, i stumped the zoo by asking what I thought was a basic question. Obviously not.)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Some genius! How about looking for a picture or video that shows a giraffe and a human simultaneously, and eyeballing it?

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/60692/man_vs_giraffe_zebra/

But why ride a giraffe when the ride would be so bumpy as all that (you'd get bucked off after one gallop), and since you could run faster than one anyway?

Also, couldn't zoo-lady have just kinda gone to the giraffe pen and eyeballed it?

Anonymous said...

Also, you can fit your arms around a horse's neck, but that doesn't stop billions of cowboys the whole world over from using a saddle.