Why Zebras Don’t Use iPhones
I couldn’t resist.
Adria Richards at But You’re a Girl, a great technology blog, recently wrote about how animals don’t react to stress the way humans do. When zebras are faced with a stressful situation, such as lions at their watering hole, they leave. They don’t hang around to, as she said, “complain to other Zebras about the lion showing up, call up more Zebras on the phone as backup or whip out their Zebra pocket knives to shank the lion.”
I, of course, thought, “But what if they did?” And so, intrepid visitors, read on to find out what happens when zebras and iPhones mix.
It was a peaceful morning on the savanna of Dodge, and the zebras meandered down to their favorite watering hole, the one with minimal pond scum and sweet green grass. The water sparkled in the sun and the fish splashed happily … until the delightful scene darkened under the shadow of a vicious lion pride!
Cleve the Zebra was a leader and seldom left things to chance. He had resources and he knew how and when to use them. At the first sight of the lions (“flea-ridden monstrosities,” as he thought of them) immediately reached for his iPhone and spoke, allowing the auto-dial to complete the number. He relaxed slightly at the sound of his adviser’s polite, professional voice. “Chrissy!” he shouted. “There are lions at this watering hole! They could totally snap our tender bones between their powerful jaws, sucking out our marrow and leaving our skeletons to bleach in the sun! What should we do?” He nodded. “Uh huh. Uh huh. Ok, thanks.” He looked up to the herd of cowering zebras, who fixated fearfully on the felines. A lioness glanced over and flipped her tail disinterestedly, sending the group into paroxysms.
Cleve knew he had to take charge lest hysteria rule the watering hole. He stood straight and snapped, “Ok, listen! I contacted Chrissy, who is a masters-level specialist in zebra-lion relations. She suggested that we call for backup. We prepared for this, remember? Who has the contact tree?”
But while their emergency plan had seemed adequate when the Preparedness Committee had created it, zebra hooves are not especially conducive to dialing numbers on fancy phones. Without the ease of voice-dialing pre-programmed numbers, the plan fizzled. Expensive phone screens shattered and incorrect numbers were dialed. Cleve groaned as he listened to the ensuing mayhem.
“Hello, Atticus? What? No … no I don’t want to order a pizza. I’m sorry. I dialed a wrong number. But wait, did you say that anchovy pesto gorgonzola pizzas were half price today? Ok, so what’s your delivery range? Your vehicles are insured against lions, right?”
“Marion? Oh, I do apologize, I was trying to reach … I’m sorry, what? A dating service, you say, for wild and frisky savanna mammals? Hmm … not that I’d be interested in such a thing, but if I were …”
“Hello? Hello? Hold on, I got a text–”
“Belinda, help! We have … oh, my apologies, I certainly didn’t mean to dial up the Mormon temple. Well, yes, of course I’ve heard of Jesus Christ, but— made lions lay down with lambs, you say? Really? How much does he charge for this service? If the lambs were to be replaced with zebras, would there be a substitution fee?”
Cleve tossed his phone into the pond. “Useless piece of unnecessarily expensive technology!” he grumbled. He glanced surreptitiously towards the flea-ridden monstrosities otherwise known as “lions.” They were momentarily satiated, if the piles of gazelle corpses nearby were any indicators. He sighed. Those corpses wouldn’t just walk off–they’d be littering the watering hole for ages, ruining the stylish Zen ambiance with an ill-advised gothic look. He supposed the jackals would start showing up at night soon, decorating the skeletons with black lights and bat wings. The thought made him determined to avert this crisis.
“New tactic!” he shouted.
Merv, who was Vice President of the Preparedness Committee, looked up excitedly. “Say, there’s this Jesus fellow who might be able to help. Sort of a hypnotist, I think, specializes in lions.” Excited discussion followed, but it was determined that this “Jesus” had been dead for years and that lions would probably not feel threatened by an insubstantial ghost.
“New tactic!” shouted Cleve again. But the zebras were huddled around the lone surviving iPhone, looking at personal ads on the “Savanna Hookup Love Meet” website and munching on pizza. Pizza? He noticed a young pizza delivery driver speeding away and looking nervously over his shoulder. The useless bastards! He thought. Give them some junk food and empty promises of getting laid, and look what happens.
The lions– their gluttonous food-coma wearing off– were growing increasingly interested in the noisy zebra herd. Cleve fretted. What to do? Was he the only zebra who gave a damn any more about the safety of the herd?
Suddenly, a scream rang throughout the grassland! Elwin, the reclusive zebra obsessed with survivalism and planetary doom (and the lone zebra who refused an iPhone), was charging the pride of lions. In his mouth was a sharpened stick. It was hard to make out what he was screaming, but it sounded a bit like “Gonna shank you, fascist punks!”
For a moment, the herd was distracted from their vices. They cheered— finally, a defender who would do something! But then the lions turned as one to face the charging zebra, and the scene turned horribly wrong. All members of the herd closed their eyes in horror, except for Merv, who held up the iPhone to capture the gory demise on video. “Oh of course I won’t post it online,” he muttered in response to the outraged protests of his companions. “This is for … um … science. The, uh … science of shanks.”
Defeated, the zebras simultaneously flopped down in the grass. “That’s it,” someone sighed. “They’ll pick us off one by one over the next few months and in the meantime, our watering hole will be infested by goth jackals and thrill-seekers.”
“We could come here only in the afternoons,” another zebra suggested. “You know, hang out part time and reduce our risk.” But no one thought that hanging around part time to get eaten was significantly different than their current situation.
“We could kill ourselves now,” suggested someone. Silence spread as the zebras considered this possibility. It would certainly cut short on the waiting time and pain. Rather proactive, really, Cleve mused. They could hold their heads underwater until they drowned–
Something tickled in his mind as he saw one of the lions lithely get up. What was it? Something about … being … pro … pro-something …actually doing something to effect change in the desired manner …
“I GOT IT!” he hollered. “We can run away! RUN!”
He ran a few steps before realizing that there was no thunder of hooves behind him. He turned and saw the herd sitting quietly and looking at him, puzzled, as the lions grew closer.
“Look,” he said, “we have control over this situation. We don’t have to just react helplessly to a fate we didn’t choose. We can deal with this threat right now! There are other watering holes out there, ones that don’t have lions! They might even be better than this hole!”
“Not possible,”Merv said staunchly. “Best grass here, no pond scum. And now we know it’s got pizza delivery service, too.” The rest of the zebras nodded in agreement.
“But you haven’t even seen what’s out there! NO LIONS, people! Isn’t that worth the chance? What’s the worse that can happen? We spend a few weeks at a watering hole with grass that isn’t as great?”
The zebras gazed skeptically at him, holding their pizza crusts protectively. “But we have pizza now! It would be stupid to leave.”
Cleve groaned. “No lions, people! No lions! Come on, now, run! Forget your fancy technology and your pizza and RUN!”
And as the lions finally reached the pride and descended with teeth and tawny fur upon the herd, a precious few understood what Cleve was trying to say and they got the hell out of Dodge.
The moral of the story, dear readers, as Adria informs us, is “Don’t hang around waiting to be eaten.” Think of your soul. Your nice, sweet soul. Who’s trying to eat it? And why aren’t you walking away?
