#1: I do not like giraffes

This is my 100th post. Let’s all take a moment to reflect.
It’s okay. I’ll wait…

Finished already?
Really? You don’t need more time?

All right then…

I know it is a bloggy tradition to mark this day with a list of 100 things about me. So I wrote my list, ut I won’t be publishing it.
At least not today, and not in list form.
Why not? Because I look at my list and all I see is my life reduced to a series of headlines.
I don’t want to be just a headline; I want to be a the whole story.
Preferably a feature.
On Sunday.
Front page.
Wouldn’t you rather read this than , “I am a Mormon with only one child.”?
Or this than, “I used to be a carnie.”
Or all of these than “I think my mom is really funny.”
And so here’s what I am going to do with my list. I am going to use it to tell you 100 Stories About Me.
No, not all at once. A little at a time. I think maybe once a week.
I’m even toying with the idea of making it into a weekly carnival. That way you can pick one of your headlines and make it a feature. What do you think?
Anyway to kick off my 100 Stories I’m going to tell you why I don’t like giraffes.
When I was about four years old my family visited the Hogle Zoo in Salt Lake City, Utah.
That fateful day is burned in my memory as the beginning of my fear and loathing of giraffes.
It started out nice. I remember that my brother and I each got to feed quarters into a machine that pressed a toy animal out of wax. He got a black gorilla, but I got a red lion.
In addtion to the newly minted toy, I was sporting an adorable little kewpie doll that my grandmother had given me that morning. I was in toy heaven.
I remember cradling my new baby doll and inhaling her plastic-formaldehyde smell. It was pure bliss.
That is until…
We walked over to the giraffe pen. Now, I don’t know if this is the irresponsible way the zoo always housed their giraffes or if they were remodeling and were merely using this as a temporarily solution, but the giraffes were only behind a chin link fence. You could get close enough to stick your fingers between the links and pet them.
I know, because that is what I was trying to do when the bottom fell out of my world.
A giraffe reached it’s hideously long neck over the fence, stuck out it’s hideously long tongue, wrapped it around my lovely doll’s head and pulled it off!
The beast slurped my poor baby’s head right up into it’s slimy mouth and proceeded to chew.
Pandemonium broke out at the zoo.
I began to shriek and sob uncontrollably. My dad, who is only 5’4″, reached as far as he could, trying to retrieve my baby. He was nowhere near the creature’s mouth so he just grabbed onto its neck and yelled at it. My mom commenced bludgeoning it with her big red vinyl purse. I continued to scream.
Thankfully, the vile thing was no match for our combined assault. It spit my doll’s head onto the pavement in a puddle of slobber.
The curtain closes on my memory here.
I do not know what happened to the doll, the giraffe, or my red lion for that matter, though I suspect my brother broke it.
What I do know this:
Giraffes are evil.
Watch out for your babies.