— Orcasional Musings by Steve Henigson —
I’m the first to admit that I have a wandering mind, just waiting for a trigger-word or an interesting phrase to set it on its merry way. It’s a wandering mind, and it’s also a salacious mind with a libertine bent all its own, and a reference which merely hints at eroticism will always have, well, interesting results.
A recent decision by Orcas Recycling Services (where we all dump our trash), transmitted to me with a giggle by our esteemed Editor, was just such a trigger, perverting my mind with a riot of racy ratiocination. (Nudge, nudge… Wink, wink… Know what I mean? Know what I mean?)
It seems that Orcas Recycling Services’s place of business, The Exchange, required a presence on the internet, and therefore it needed a unique and easy-to-remember dot-com name, which had to be contrived for it. Well, that should be a simple matter. It’s on Orcas. It’s The Exchange. Put the two together. Right?
Wrong! The result of this conjoining would then read “orcasexchange.” Do you see the problem? The people who run The Exchange did. Oh, those poor whales, assigned their genders so incorrectly at birth! Yes, rather than “Orcas Exchange,” we might instead see: “orca sex change.”
And that’s when my mind took off. It started with a vision of psychiatric counselling. I saw a huge, black, white-spotted presence, dripping sea water and chewing nervously on salmon bones, squirming uncomfortably upon a highly stressed, brocade-upholstered fainting couch. Behind, sitting in a large armchair and taking notes with furious concentration, was a fat and magisterial walrus, twirling his mustache and chewing thoughtfully on an unlit pipe. “Yes, yes” the walrus was saying, “and for how long have you had these feelings?”
My next mental image explored whether orcas might be allowed to selectively self-identify, in terms of gender, and what the undersea complications of dealing with that phenomenon could be. For instance, if a masculine orca self-identified as a feminine orca, would he be allowed to use the little girls’ shipwreck, or would he be required to continue to use the little boys’ facility? Could he attend the girls’ salmon school at lunchtime?
Then I thought about voluntary gender-reassignment surgery. Who would do that? And how? It’s kind of hard to tell from the outside, with whales. And if it were being done, would a ladder be involved, or would it be scuba gear? Or both? And pity the poor anesthetist! My thoughts kept coming on, thick and fast, until, finally, mercifully, I dropped off to sleep. By breakfast-time the next morning, it had all gone away.
But what about Orcas Recycling Services? Did they solve their internet-name problem? Oh, it was easy-peasy! They just decided upon exchangeorcas.com. Problem solved.
But, wait a minute…”exchangeorcas”? What if someone had given me the wrong whale for Christmas? Wouldn’t I want to, um, exchange orcas?
And my mind started wandering, all over again.
I look forward to all of Steve’s Orcasional Musings but this one is special. The phrase “a riot of racy ratiocination” really caught my eye. Like so much of Steve’s musings, this piece is quirky, funny, clever and educational. (I had to look up the definition of ratiocination).
I always am a little taken aback when I get email ads for window treatments from blindsexpress.com. Huh??!! Good thinking, Exchange! And thanks for the laughs, Steve. Dog knows we need ‘em.