The Three Penguins

Not so long ago we said farewell to three of our volunteers, Jourdan, Amy and Christina. During their time here they joined forces and conspired to make my life as difficult as possible and initiated a prank war – for this contest they called themselves The Three Penguins. This has something to do with the film Madagascar (which I haven’t actually seen) therefore I was then dubbed ‘King Julian’ – I later learned that King Julian is a rather groovy Lemur so I was actually quite pleased with the name (yet another failure on your part penguins!).

So throughout this blog entry I will keep score so there will forever be no doubt who came out on top (its me by the way, oh yes it is Penguins read on and weep!). But first, who exactly were my adversaries? First up we have Amy, a South African teenager who god bless her has a lot to learn about the ways of the world and can best be described as….’special’. In fact the pic below pretty much sums her up :)

Next is Jourdan an American veterinary student who spent most of her time playing with cheetah poo, since she has gone the air smells sweet and is ok to breath again. Finally and least is Christina, least because when we first saw her we thought a small child had strayed from the playground and got lost – she’s smaller than Cheri believe it or not (in the pic below, Jourdan on the left is actually sitting a good 10 feet behind Christina!)

Let it be known the Penguins struck the first act of war in an extremely dangerous and unprovoked attack, which was all caused by them being unable to take some well-meant constructive criticism. You see, the troublesome trio liked to make desserts on the weekend and I would give my honest opinion on their concoctions - because if I didn’t tell them the truth how would they learn from their mistakes, right? So when I tasted a piece of their ‘Apple Pie’ I simply gave them the truth, which was that the pie was ‘all right’. This comment was meant with only good intentions but instead of being thanked for my expert opinion I was bombarded with insults and hurtful names. The next thing they attempted was ‘strawberry ice cream’. I found the ice cream in the freezer and thought I would playfully write my name in it as a way of bridging the divide that was developing between us. However, later that day when they handed me a portion my ninja like instincts told me that something was a miss. As I slid the pink sloppy goo around my bowl I noticed something in the ice cream that was not a strawberry, upon closer inspection the horrifying truth was revealed……the dirty Penguins had placed a filthy rock in my ice cream!! I could not believe it, all I had done was try and nurture them like a mother cheetah would nurture her cubs but I had my generous efforts thrown back in my face, I could have chocked to death on that rock!

Score: Penguins 1 King Julian 0

So the next day I found the ice cream in the freezer again, but this time I added an extra ingredient of my own – a generous portion of peas! Unfortunately I was not able to see the moment they discovered the peas but I was told it had the desired effect and they were thoroughly pissed off!

Score: Penguins 1 King Julian 1

The pea sabotage provoked the penguins to spend the rest of that evening plotting and scheming and they thought they had come up with a perfect way of getting instant revenge. Christina (who lived with me at Boskop) snuck into my room and stole a pair of my flip-flops, put them into a tub of water and left it in the freezer over night. In the morning I discovered the flip-flops floating in the tub of unfrozen water along with a note declaring war, signed by the Three Penguins. However, this attack was a spectacular own goal as the flip-flops they chose were my work flops, which were dirty and stinky. Also because our freezer is on a timer and not on constantly throughout the night the water did not freeze – so what the Penguins had actually done was wash my flip-flops – result!

Score: Penguins 1 King Julian 2

It is time to mention that during this war I had given a challenge to Christina who was volunteering with us through the zookeeper internship. The challenge was to learn all 21 Bellebenno cheetahs before she left – a challenge that others have taken and failed (sorry Tamara). If she was successful I would buy her a 6-pack of her choosing, if she failed then I would be the recipient of the 6-pack. Despite the prospect of loosing I guided Christina with care and understanding, but again my generosity was unappreciated and Christina would often talk back to me and give me grief. Christina was also the cockiest of the Penguins and often bragged about the pranks she had played on her friends and that I shouldn’t mess with her. So I felt no shame in singling her out for special treatment including:

# Throwing a big stick swarming with bees at her feet (her face and her screams of ‘are you f**king crazy’ will make me smile for the rest of my days).

# Kicking a football at her head – what made this extra great was the fact that not only did the football hit her but when she raised her hand to defend herself she hit herself in the head with her camera leaving a bruise.

# Squirting her in the face with a hose (I was actually aiming for Amy but fate intervened).

# Stabbing her with her a sharp stick (I stabbed her in response to one of her smart ass comments but I didn’t know the stick was as sharp as it was, again fate knowingly intervened).

# Removing important letters from her favourite game of Bananagrams – this was probably my cleverest idea but unfortunately she failed to play the game again after I had done it so I concede this as an own goal.

Score: Penguins 2 King Julian 6

However, my own goal was nothing compared to the Penguin’s next effort. I had brought my ipod and speakers to dinner at the hot spot one night and when I went to go home to Boskop I left them behind on the dinner table. Jordan and Amy found them and decided to go up to the tower and have an impromptu dance party. Around this time my departure for Boskop was slightly delayed due to an issue with the dogs and I needed to find Amy to ask her a question. However, I couldn’t find her anywhere and even started shouting for her – Amy and Jourdan mistakenly thought I was on the rampage about my ipod and decided not to show themselves. After I had left they then went to the office and connected my ipod to a computer and attempted to mess with the contents, however all they managed to do was add some of my albums into the ’My Playlists’ menu - this is nothing but a minor inconvenience for me but I will concede a point. So, thinking that I was mad about my missing ipod (in fact had no idea it was missing) Jordan and Amy thought it would be highly amusing to plant my ipod and speakers into the car we had driven to Boskop with the hope that I would discover them the next morning and start cursing the name of the Penguins. To do this Jourdan got up ridiculously early in the morning and RAN the 7km to Boskop, snuck through our gates and placed the ipod and speakers on the back seat of the car and then ran back to CCF! HOWEVER, what they didn’t know was that we had taken two cars to Boskop (as Rob had to leave much earlier than the rest of us) and he decided to take the car with the ipod inside, myself and the other boskopians took another car into work. When I finally found my ipod later that morning I simply thought I had forgotten to bring it back into the house upon returning home the previous night and thought nothing of it. This is what you would call an EPIC fail!

Score: Penguins 3 King Julian 7

I will be fair and give the penguins points for placing a goat horn in my water bottle, obtaining video footage of me falling over a football and for the time Christina passed out at the base of the toilet after drinking way too much tequila and hence scaring me to death when I went to use said toilet! I also lost a bet with Jourdan which I can’t go into too much detail here as this is a public forum, but the result was me having to hand over half a 6-pack.

Score: Penguins 7 King Julian 7
Ooooh, the score is so close I hear you say …..but wait:

# When Christina was helping Amy carefully take out a burr that had got caught in her hair I walked over with my leatherman and just cut it straight out of her hair (the look of shock on Amy’s face will also make me smile for the rest of my days).

# When Amy was taking a swig from her platypus water bottle on the drive back from feeding I reached over and squeezed it, causing water to explode all over her face.

# When I found Jourdan’s bag unguarded I filled it with dead moths.

Score: Penguins 7 King Julian 10

Sadly, Christina also failed to correctly ID all 21 Bellebenno cheetahs on her official test, and I mean sadly as I willed her to succeed, I even gave her a second test but alas she failed again. Therefore I was reluctantly the recipient of a sweet smelling $50 note to buy my 6-pack of Hunters Gold.

Score: Penguins 7 King Julian 11

Finally, in the Penguins last few days as a group they pretty much conceded defeat by kneeling down in front of me begging for forgiveness and offering me another 6-pack of Hunters Gold. I even have photographic proof that this act of submission took place, behold:

Final Score: Penguins 7 King Julian 12!

Defeated it was time for the Penguins to leave and I told them that to replicate their presence I would stab myself in the ass with a pin every two minutes. So as we said our goodbyes they handed me a departing gift – 3 pins (one of them was bent so I have called that one Amy).

Now this is hard for me to say but I do kind of miss them, we no longer have Amy to amuse us with her habit of splurting out whatever mad thoughts popped into her head (believe me, what goes on in her head is madder than an episode of the Mighty Boosh), I can no longer tease Jourdan the smelly poop lady and I miss finding ways to cause physical and mental pain to Christina. :(

I will now await the deluge of angry accusations of foul play from the Penguins but whatever you say you three…… King Julian kicked your asses!!!! Mwwhhaaaaa ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!!!!!