Buried here:
Ficali McPipe
(1980 - 2006)
Beloved
Killed by suicidal giraffe
A few weeks ago, as I was walking to work, I suddenly felt something falling towards me from aloft. Something large and unwieldy (like a body, the thought flashed morbidly through me), creating a descending shadow of hurtling mass. I caught the flicker of movement from the corner of my eye, and instinctively did a mental flinch. I say mental flinch because although my mind thought 'duck!!!', my body, lulled by urban life into forgetting natural survival instincts, failed to react in any way whatsoever.
Did you ever hear the story, as a child, of the squirrel that had an acorn fall on its head and thought the sky had cracked open and fallen down?
In that moment, I was the squirrel. (there is no dignity in this story).
For a moment, I thought I was dead. Then it occurred to me that if I was actually thinking about death, then I had to be alive. Then it occurred to me that I wasn't even hurt. So I took a moment to glance around. And there, lying beside me on the ground, was an ENORMOUS (almost me-sized), stuffed giraffe. Which had fallen on my head from the third floor window.
What the...?!! Who gets assaulted by a falling giraffe?! It was surreal to the point of inane hilarity.
Turns out, there's a Toys'R'Us warehouse on that street. I found this out a couple of days later when I was walking to work again (yes, despite my near death experience, I continue to follow the same path. Let it never be doubted that I'm a creature of habit), and I saw a Toys'R'Us truck in front of the very building. Unloading large things that looked suspiciously like my animalian assailant.
So then I started thinking, suppose I had died, what would my obituary read like?
Ficali McPipe, pint-sized HR bod with the most cluttered office ever seen. Regular hoarder of dried fruit, nuts and porridge from the kitchen supplies. Fanatic of summer dresses and winter hats. Killed by suicidal foam giraffe.
There's just much coolness in it all, is there? I really am the Napolean Dynamite of this world.
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4 comments:
Haha. I think it was Chicken Little who thought the sky was falling. Not a squirrel. You're getting your animals mixed up. That falling giraffe might have done more damage than you think :P
Ha. Ha. Smarty-pants. :)
~FMP
You've made my morning with this one! What a good laugh I got. :)
Really, I know you are probably pretty happy just blogging, but you ought to try writing for a print audience some time.
Thank you!
~FMP
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