Thursday, July 3, 2008

Police Suspect Giraffe in Circus Breakout

Welcome to this week's Thursday News of the Absurd Will Someone Please Write This Book Inspirational Moment (TNoftheAWSPWTBIM).

Sometimes I worry I won't find something silly enough for this feature...and then something like this falls into my lap:

From Reuters:

Police Suspect Giraffe in Circus Breakout

"Fifteen camels, two zebras and several llamas and pot-bellied pigs escaped from a circus visiting
Amsterdam early Monday."

The visual image of this mass exodus amuses me. Anything with pot-bellied pigs is inherently funny, and the collection of animals is wonderfully motley (I get why the camels, zebras and llamas are in cahoots. Why bring the pigs?!). I see fabulous escape scenes illustrated by Quentin Blake, with other animals cheering the fugitives and possibly a Charlotte's Web-esque capture-the-pig scene involving the strong man and someone on stilts.

But the real hilarity here, to me, is the headline: Police Suspect Giraffe. I suppose the police have the giraffe in custody and are questioning him in connection with the break-out? THAT is what I want in the picture book. Will someone please write the story of the poor giraffe, duped by smooth-talking camels into kicking the gate open, hunted by police, and handcuffed to a chair under a bare light bulb, being interrogated by police beavers* smoking sticks of wood?

* I don't know why I'm picturing beavers. Feel free to choose your own police animal.

9 comments:

J. Thorp said...

I love the beaver cops! And I love the fact that you imagined the bare light bulb in the interrogation room, because my first thought (literally!) was, I wonder how they will get a giraffe, with such a loooong neck, under the interrogation lamps to make him (or her) sweat?

Jacqui said...

Hmm. Good point about the neck. Okay, now I am seeing a really tall room, with one of the beavers on a ladder (maybe a ladder made of other beavers), carrying a bare lightbulb on a long cord, just so he can hang it over the giraffe's head. Or maybe they've rigged some sort of harness for the poor giraffe so he has to wear a collar with a pole and the light bulb hanging down.

C.R. Evers said...

lol! Disney will probabaly snatch this idea up! :0)

Cate Gardner said...

OMG! What a story.

Mary Witzl said...

Beaver cops -- yes, I can see this. And yes -- I'm picturing them up on ladders, teetering on their tippy-toes, that one naked lightbulb swinging back and forth in the dingy little interrogation room with its rough cement floor.

I'm betting the raccoons put them up to it.

Jacqui said...

Ooh, Mary, those nasty raccoons. Seriously, where is the illustrator amongst us to do this?!

Brenda said...

I love this! Can you imagine the finger/paw printing, and the mug shot of the Giraffe...the little sign with his number on it being all the way down his neck and the little photo cop trying to figure out how to get his face and the sign in the same picture...lol...

Danette Haworth said...

Personlly, I thing the pigs put him up to it. Their New Year's resolutions to diet have failed and secretly, they are jealous of the giraffe for his sleek figure. I bet they will plea bargain by ratting out on him.

Jacqui said...

Danette: Ha! And I think you're right, somebody ratted out the poor guy.