1. Hold hands. It was hard enough for me to do when I was 14 and my hands were still lithe. Try having big nubs. Good for pounding monkeys on the head and pressing flowers for gifts, but not good for entwining.
2. Go skydiving. That would be dumb and elephants are smart.
3. Tip the waiter. At the end of the date it is customary for the elephants to communicate to each other whether they are satisfied or not with the other’s company. This is signalled through each elephant placing a few gold coins in the other’s trunk. As such, to tip the waiter would be to suggest that the elephant is interested in the waiter. Sometimes, however, this is actually the case.
4. Talk about politics. There was an incident in ’73. Pleasant chatter turned to talk of pianos and minor objects of decorative value[i] and the rest is history. No elephant has ever forgotten.
5. Walk on the beach. The male elephant is one of those jealous, territorial types. Harmonious when in the jungle or in the northern plains, yes. But place him on the sand looking out to that vast mass of water, where the arch of the humpback is distorting the horizon’s straight line, and he is something else. Snarling, proud, in no mood to charm.
6. Stay out past curfew. Elephants traditionally begin dating when they are around 13-14 years old[ii]. At this delicate stage in their lives, they are still under the (metaphorical) wing of their parents. Any deviance from the set curfew generally results in tribal warfare between the two families. Death or mutilation often occurs.
7. Dress in leopard print. For the same reason humans don’t. Well, shouldn’t.
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