Friday, May 22, 2009

Four New Gorillas

Today I called a Canadian airline named WestJet to change a reservation. The (very nice) lady who answered the phone gave me her name, said she was in Calgary and informed me that her city had just gotten four new gorillas.
This took me by surprise. Most airlines don't offer an inventory of their zoos. I'm guessing that most airline employees don't keep up on this type of info. More importantly, most airlines don't encourage their agents to talk about such things.
Not sure what to do with the gorilla news, I tried to push on but she then asked me if it wasn't exciting news. I agreed and tried to keep up my end of the conversation by asking her how many total gorillas they now had. She said she wasn't sure. She then told me that they got two boys and two girls. They came from New York and they would be quarantined for 90 days. Seeing my opening I asked if they did that for all New Yorkers or just for gorillas.
She was a pleasant woman and I'm happy to find people making their jobs (and mine) a little sunnier. A few thoughts though...
  • It turns out that the story is true. I almost wish it was just a unique greeting that she gave to people. In fact, I'm thinking of using that for lulls in conversation with people all over the world. "Cleveland? Didn't you just get four new gorillas?"
  • It pretty much has to be gorillas to make this interesting, doesn't it? If it was zebras it would be too little. If it was elephants it would be too much.
  • 'Four New Gorillas' would be a great band name, or in this age a great blog name. Steve B, you could go with 'Six New Gorillas'.

1 comment:

Meigan said...

This is such a cute post. It makes me think of the two giraffes that I pass - every single day - on my way home from work. Eating leaves from a Wisconsin tree I'm sure they'd never find in an African desert, but not minding too much. I'd love to include them in all of my introductory conversations.