Aardvark Day
Today is National Aardvark Day in Shalampax. Just to be clear, there are not now, nor have there ever been any aardvarks in Shalampax. I doubt that any aardvarks have ever come within hundreds of miles of this island. And, if they had any choice in the matter, I’m sure the aardvarks would vote to keep it that way.
So, you may be wondering, why is today National Aardvark day here? That is a good question. The answer is much less good.
One of our Members of Parliament heard the word aardvark and, despite having no idea what it meant, he liked the sound of it. As a result, he put forward a motion to name today National Aardvark Day. Because all of the other MPs were asleep at the time, the vote on his motion carried with one for and none against.
To say the least, National Aardvark Day perplexes most Shalampaxians. I did an informal survey and found that 83.5 percent of Shalampaxians not only do not know what an aardvark is, but, when presented with a multiple-choice question, they cannot even classify aardvarks as animal, vegetable or mineral. This is surprising because, had they made random guesses, you would have expected about one-third of them to get it right.
Needless to say, no one here has any idea how to celebrate National Aardvark day, but they are happy for the holiday.
Happy Aardvark Day, Merry Aardvark Day or whatever the appropriate greeting for this holiday may be.
I’m glad the aardvark is getting the recognition he deserves–at least somewhere in the world.
@Patricia: Yes, I don’t know exactly what an aardvark is, but I figure that anything clever enough to give itself a name that gets itself highly ranked in the dictionary deserves much more recognition than aardvarks get.