- by Owen Morton
There is a breed of animal in the world that is so repulsively vile that I can barely bear to write about it. I’m willing to confess that the mairpus that I discussed in the first few weeks of the existence of Heath the Rat’s Silly Page is not actually real. I made it up. I bet you were all fooled, weren’t you? But the problem here is that the breed of brutish animal that I’m going to write about today is not made up. They truly exist. And I hate them. I really hate them.
You can probably guess what I’m talking about, really. There’s very few animals that could make a grown man like me tremble with fear. Go on, take a guess as to what I’m talking about. If you guessed ‘frenzied tiger’, you were wrong. I laugh in the face of frenzied tigers. Then they eat me. Just as well it’s never happened, really. But still, I don’t fear frenzied tigers. If I saw one walking down the street, it’s fairly likely that I would exercise a sensible level of prudence and remain inside my house, quaking beneath the table. But I wouldn’t be tempted to go and get my double-barrelled shotgun and shoot the bastard. That honour is reserved for just one creature, the most evil that was ever called into existence from whatever demonic source.
Yes, it’s the giraffe.
They give me the willies. The absolute willies. I hate them, and if it came on the news that every giraffe in the world had been wiped out in a nuclear explosion, I would cheer. And I don’t think I’d be the only person cheering. I don’t think there’s anyone in the world who hasn’t been chased over several continents by one. God, those giraffes. They’re always watching me. I hate them so much.
I remember a time when I was in East Africa. That’s where the giraffes all come from, you know. They start there. I didn’t know that then, but now that I do, I can tell you I won’t ever be going back there, beautiful as it may be. The giraffes spoil it. Anyway, on this occasion in East Africa, I ran into a giraffe in a dark alley. I’m not exactly a weakling, to be honest with you, but even a strapping young man draws the line at getting into a fistfight with an angry giraffe. So I apologised to this long-necked bastard and tried to back out of it, resolving to come back later with an anti-tank gun or something equally effective in the Art of Giraffe Suppression.
Unfortunately, this despicable specimen of giraffiness wouldn’t have my apologies. Instead, he just advanced on me, slowly and menacingly. He even drew his sword. I honestly think that if the police hadn’t come along just in time, that giraffe would have done me in that night. It simply doesn’t do to allow giraffes to wander around the city unsupervised. Anything can happen, and something very nearly did happen. I nearly died.
Giraffes certainly shouldn’t be allowed to go unsupervised. To be honest, they should probably be put in jail. I know they put them in zoos and claim they’re locked up securely, but I know giraffes. If they had half a mind to, they’d tear down those fences in seconds and go on a rampage. It’s happened before, and I strongly suspect it’ll happen again and again until someone finally listens to the voice of reason and keeps their giraffes tied to the wall at all times.
It’s actually quite a good idea to put giraffes in the electric chair if you can. That shows them who’s boss. Giraffes are actually resistant to most forms of execution, as far as I know. I’ve tried shooting them, beheading them and drowning them, but the electric chair is the only method that’s almost guaranteed. Shooting sometimes works, but beheading and drowning are an absolute pain in the neck (especially in the former case – ha ha ha!). The thing about beheading a giraffe is that its neck is so long and it can swish it about so violently that you’ve got no guarantee you’ll ever hit it with the axe. It’s really annoying, and it can make you look really unprofessional if you’re beheading it in front of an audience. Drowning’s nearly as bad. The thing about giraffes is that they can store sixty eight hours of oxygen in those excessively long necks of theirs, and there’s no real way of keeping them under that long, unless you tie an anvil to them and drop them into the depths of the ocean, which – as I’m sure you’ll all agree – is a waste of a good anvil.
On the other hand, electric chairs are really good. You just strap the stupid brutes in and then turn the chair on, and that’s the end of them, yes it is. I’ve despatched at least sixteen giraffes that way, and I’ve been recognised in twenty nine different countries as a Giraffe Hunter Extraordinaire. It was after that incident in East Africa that I decided to be a Giraffe Hunter, and it’s a career move that I’ve never regretted. I’m doing the world a tremendous favour, and it’s something that I enjoy, really. I’ll not deny that it’s sometimes terrifying, but I live for adrenaline. I’m a man who kills giraffes. It’s an epic struggle between man and beast out there, and the excitement comes from knowing that sometimes it’s not the man who wins. But you do know that if he doesn’t, there’s always going to be other men around (and sometimes women too, in this age of equality) who can dispose of the murdering bastard of a giraffe who killed you.
It’s astonishing how much I hate them, you know. Sometimes I surprise even myself with the ferocity of my reaction to them. But then I remember that they deserve everything they get, and more besides. The best thing to do with a giraffe is put it in a room with all the other giraffes, and let them fight it out. They will fight as well, you know, because they’re such aggressive animals that without any humans to murder, they’ll turn on each other. The last giraffe alive will, of course, be the toughest giraffe, but in all honesty, you can just chuck a grenade into the room, and that’ll do it in. And if it doesn’t, just leave it to starve. That’s my plan for eradicating giraffes.
There are some people who don’t think giraffes should be wiped out. They’re wrong. Who among us hasn’t grown up in fear of the knock on the door in the middle of the night, and answering to find a herd of homicidal giraffes waiting on the other side. It’s particularly widespread in Newcastle, as far as I’ve heard. I was there a couple of weeks ago and there were giraffes knocking on the doors in broad daylight. People were being dragged out of their homes and taken away to the zoo where the giraffes live. God only knows what horrors awaited those poor souls there.
So don’t tell me that giraffes deserve mercy. They don’t. I can tell you that it was giraffes who masterminded the Napoleonic Wars, among other things. They caused so much destruction in Europe in the 19th century, and no one even knew. They operated secretly then, but they’ve come out into the open now, and they – excuse me a second. There’s been a knock on the door.
Ugh. That was horrible. There were ten of them there. But I didn’t lose my head. They lost all theirs, though.
I think I’ve emphasised this point sufficiently. Just watch out. There’s always a giraffe watching you.