When in doubt, stick it out or Hippos vs. Ballerinas

So, I've vacillated between posting this and only telling it to my friends in person, and obviously you can tell which side won that debate, and it's mostly because of phrases like "drunken monkey" and the need to for a public service announcement regarding physics.

Once upon a time in the not-too-distant past, I went to a bachelorette party for my dear friend Muffin*. Part of that party was a pole dancing class. Yep. Pole dancing. Like what some strippers do. So, in a room with 15 of Muffin's friends, we learned some basics of how to throw ourselves around this pole, slide about and walk on our buttocks. It was more silly than sexy, but it was really fun. It was fun because it made being sexy something that wasn't mysterious or unobtainable. It was a safe place to try moving our bodies in new ways, with someone who had insight to guide us. And you ain't seen nuthin' 'till you've seen a bunch of shy white girls (and me) trying to move like Beyonce. Seriously.

But we had fun, and it was a good workout. You use your arms & legs & abs & laugh a lot, so there were definitely calories burned.

Then, a year and change had passed when I saw an opportunity for further hilarity

Hippos, giraffs, and house cats

I'm going to say the F word a lot in this post, so please prepare yourself.

FAT

There, see?  I said it.  Fat, fat, fat, fat, fat.

Now that we're over that, let me get on with what I really wanted to talk about: animals

My favorite animal that doesn't live in my house is a giraffe. Because I'm tall and have a long neck I often get associated with the noble gangly giraffe, which is really good, because they're not always all that graceful, and neither am I. But they don't talk or make any noises and I certainly do... they just cough to signal danger, which is, as Eddie Izzard says, "very British." I like their little horn-nubs and their eyelashes that go on for miles, like Snuffleupagus, only with spots that aren't round instead of shaggy mammoth hair. Snuffy was a woolly mammoth, wasn't he? An imaginary woolly mammoth, with no tusks? But I digress. Where was I? Oh yes, Giraffes--long necks, no grace, horn nubs, eyelashes. I think that about sums it up.