Now, I’m a smart guy.
I’m not meaning to sound braggadocios at all, but I could be the most culturally-aware cat that I know.
If you were to gather the top 30 people with their fingers on the pulse of society and toss ’em in a schoolroom scenario, I’d be in the top 2 percentile.
Part of it is a natural ability, like a seventh sense, if you will, part of it is hard work.
I work tirelessly to be this alert and knowledgeable.
In fact, I won the ‘most knowledgeable boy’ award in sixth grade.
Don’t believe me? My mom still has that red ribbon.
Anyways, the point I’m trying to make, is that it is awfully hard to pull one over ol’ Ryan. However, it happens, though not often, and I’m going to talk a bit about what it was that took the floor out from under me in typical “we landed on the moon!” Dumb & Dumber fashion.
The Google is an everyday tool to me, much like midichlorians are for Scientologists. I rely on this endless chasm of information to keep me up to speed with my surroundings, current events, things of that nature. Often times I will take short breaks mid-day, which I call “power-googs”, to stimulate my brain when I feel lethargic or even just to know more about life and this crazy thing we call ‘earth’. Nothing is immune to a power-goog, everything is ripe fodder for me to study, master, and eventually pass on to every person I come into contact with. On Fridays I even like to take it casual and just Google image search pizzas. Slices, pies, stuffed crust, just pizzas. Once a month I’ll go all out and spend a good twenty minutes on ‘Chicago style deep dish’, to set the tone for the weekend. It really is cathartic, you need to try it.
Anyways, yesterday I was having a real good goog, you know, the kind where you don’t even remember where you started after forty-five minutes. Somewhere along the line, long after finishing ‘the battle of Bannockburn’ on the Wikipedia (that’s the online Encyclopedia), I thought ‘what the hell, let’s see what’s happening in the animal world’. What I found shortly thereafter was not only shocking, but embarrassing, exciting, revolutionary, heart-warming and good.
I discovered that there is an animal called a ‘Narwhal’. No ‘e’, it’s not ‘gnar-whale’, but ‘NAR-WALL’. If you don’t know what this beast of beauty is, have yourself a power-goog and allow your mind to be blown.
This majestic creature of the sea is the closest we will get to catching a unicorn. The Narwhal (which can only be found in Norway, hence the name) is the descendant of the believed-to-be extinct unicorn. Apparently a few generations ago, a unicorn (not to be confused with ‘uniCRON’, the planet-devouring transformer) mated with a porpoise, on purpose, to create this creature that managed to evade my wandering eyes for so long.
Then, through the miracle of evolution, and decades of unpleasant mutations, nature bestowed upon us a gentle animal with the body of a dolphin, the head of a cabbage, and a beautiful pearled horn sticking out of its over-sized brow. Yes, I know it’s hard to believe! It’s amazing! These wondrous monsters of fate were only talked about it the ‘kooky books’ for so long, but now it seems we can confirm that they do, in fact, exist. I can’t wait to show this unique being of myth and fantasy to my friends and family.
Although I will leave the brunt of the discovery up to you, let me fill you in on some of the more interesting facts about our horned cousins of the deep, the illustrious narwhal:
- There are currently over a billion narwhals living and swimming under the ice-caps of the Norwegian ocean.
- The vikings used to rely on the magnificent call of the narwhals, referred to as ‘the songs of the saints’, to guide them through rough waters.
- Narwhals are currently hunted for their leathery skin, which is used in car-interiors. Their long, razor-sharp horns are also harvested for use in floating candle decorations.
- The biggest narwhal weighs in at 3,000 pounds, while the smallest is barely an ounce.
- Female narwhals attract potential male mates by stabbing them through the head with their eight-foot unicorn horns.
- For years, scientists believed that the narwhal is the missing link in our search for alternate dimensions. When blasted mercilessly with radioactive waves for hours at a time, this was deemed false.
- Catsup, a narwhal in captivity at Sea World San Diego, can understand ‘fish’ in twelve languages.
- One in one-thousand narwhals are pink in color. These rare beauties have both male and female genetalia, and do in fact make themselves pregnant. The babies produced from a pink narwhal are see-through with eyes that light up purple at night.
- The oldest recorded narwhal has a beard.
- Narwhals are deathly terrified of infants and fire. They will quite literally drop dead, well… float dead, in contact with either of the two.
- The narwhal’s teeth are made of a fleshy, sponge-like material known as ‘terrafluff’. The unique scent emitted from the root of terrafluff is used in most modern eau du toilets as well as a healthier alternative to monosodium glutamate.
- Although the narwhal are a peaceful, social creature, the narwhal society is riddled with rape.
Listen to me… you’d think I was enamoured with these magnificent beasts. These horned angels of the deep. Well I am.
One day I wish to meet one of these narwhals. Then I will name it, probably something Greek like ‘Herasaurticlonos’. I would also enjoy riding him, saddle-less, save my hands tightly grasping its face-lance. Then, in an act of pure masculinity, I will take a bite from its hide, thumb its eyes out, bleed it, tear its head off, remove its horn and toenails, fashion a necklace, and turn its coat into a cowboy duster.
Then, out of respect for this mythical animal, I will pay the ultimate honour to Herasaurticlonos with an eight-foot-tall wall mural.
Narwhals. Discuss.
