Rhinos Don't Float

Flirtatious: " Like the view up here in the penthouse?"

Real Mood: Collectively both Impish and Oafish..

Prediction: Lladro will never sculpt a Rhinoceros.

I suppose there are some serious things going on in the World I ought to be reflecting on.  But when I catch this Rhino climbing our lamp shade? Nope! There'll be no serious pondering here today, the next to last day of January.

The Rhino reminds me of an exercise we're doing in Announcing Class. To get students loose with the copy they are reading aloud? I give them a stereotype persona to hide behind.  

"Okay BillyBob, while you are reading your article on glaciation? I want you to read it as a vegetarian."

Now I've got a stereotype picture of a "vegan" in MY brain. So why is BillyBob struggling with finding a prototype vegetarian to imitate?

Well a RHINO is a VEGAN, isn't it? That sort of skews the profile boundaries. I'm not going to gently ask a rhino if I can share his lemongrass.

The star today is Evan, who is sharing his academic treatise on the rare "Elephant Shrew" in the persona of a Bavarian Winter Olympic Athlete. ( His Austrian Slalom master could be a voice twin to Governor Arnold.)   Should you ever be in desperate need of a humungous belly laugh? I'll loan Evan out to you as his agent.  We may have to take his act on the road this summer.

Evan is just the star. Everyone lets loose of some constraints. I wonder if I just hang on to this exercise for my own amusement?

I don't think so? But you never know. A side benefit is it appears to be a back handed way to blow up some of those stereotypes.

It's been my experience that very few GREAT lessons are planned.  They just happen! Some social scientist comes along later and defines them for us. THEN we put them in the text book.

When I was in Peace Corps training a billion years ago, a staff mission was to find ways to put all of us under SOME form of extreme pressure. Believe it or not, that's no mean task.

Take a guy who graduates Cum Laude from the University of Montana.  He's a hardened cowboy, and a Division II All American tight end on the football team. He is annoyingly polite. His second language facility is impressive.  He treats women like the porcelain dolls of Lladro. He drinks beer and never gets inebriated.

How do you rattle his cage?

Well they DO find a way.  And I'm pretty sure they find it by accident. 

They teach us all a swimming pool floating technique they call "Drown Proofing."

I mean you never know when you'll be captured by rebels in Columbia, tossed into a submarine, and then unloaded in the middle of the sea and told, "Drown you Yankee Pig!" Right?  

Meanwhile back at the pool. To test our proficiency in this skill they tie our hands and feet behind us. Then they throw us in the pool. They casually walk away telling us they HOPE to be back in about a half hour.

I'm sure you've all noticed that women tend to float better than men? That's the case at sea or in a pool. The PRESSURE gradient from Drown Proofing for women? It's not particularly high.

Men do float as well, but not as easily. They do it with the aid of a little body fat. I mean we all have some body fat, right?

"Cum Laude" tight ends from Montana do not have any body fat.  They do not float. They sink in water at the speed of a meteorite. 

And that's the speed with which the staff reappears to rescue the All American. They do not wait the suggested thirty minutes.

Hauled to the surface, spitting buckets of chlorinated water from his lungs,  the tight end mutters something akin to, "so that's what you call  &^$#!$$ pressure?"

I'm pretty confident someone quickly jotted down a reminder that likely read:

"Memo to self. Get this Drown Proof thing into training manual. Make sure it's used on any trainees who happen to be tight ends from Montana. Keep life raft close by!"

OUR tight end starts employing a new language facility. All of sudden he's using some new foreign words. These are words seldom heard in front of any Lladro dolls.

All of a sudden beer starts to have an impact on our Montanan. 

Over time he's backed off the weight training  and added at least enough body fat to float.

Memo maybe pinned to Peace Corps training officer's bulletin board?

" Do not tie hands , and or feet,  of any trainees who are Rhinos. Do not throw Rhinos into pool or sea.  Rhinos do not float! Rhinos can not be lifted by hand. But I've heard they can jump."