Tuesday, September 27, 2005

Traveling by airplane is the last humiliation troubling Western man. It is a thoroughly unpleasant experience. To steal myself against the privations inflicted upon my person, I entertain myself by conversing with fellow passengers also strapped into this aluminum tube hurdling through the sky. The entertainment comes from the fanciful autobiography I concoct for myself. This last trip I was a pachydermist. I had been called to the Hungarian National Zoo to investigate a specimen who allegedly could hop an incredible 10 cm s. I know 10 cm s doesn't sound like much but for an elephant we are talking about a record breaking leap. You see most think elephants cannot jump because of their size. Not true. Not true at all. They haven't got the knees for it. Their knees are all wrong for jumping. Slap on the right kind of knee and elephants would be gamboling like fawns. This is why I traveled to Budapest to see 'Kersel' which is what they named the elephant. It means 'eagle' in Magyar.

I go on like this making small talk ensuring I insert as much erroneous information as possible. The hope being that at least one piece of information get corrected thus throwing doubt on all the incredible information I had been recounting. The best bit is if I see them on the return flight. I pretend I never met them before.

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