Monday, April 2, 2007

midnight snack



The book "Kingdom of the Octopus" by F. Lane (1957) just gives and gives. In the chapter "Locomotion," there are some incidents of octopuses walking around that are great.

Behold:

"L.R. Brightwell tells me that at the Marine Biological Station at Plymouth he once met an octopus walking downstairs at 2:30 in the morning. It had come from the laboratory... An even more surprising encounter with a perambulating octopus occurred while Brightwell was on a Channel trawler. The fishermen caught a small octopus and left it on the deck. It walked down the companionway to the cabin and two hours later was found in the teapot!"

I have to say, I like the story about meeting the octopus on the stairs in the wee hours the best. I picture the following conversation between BRIGHTWELL and the OCTOPUS:
BRIGHTWELL (groggy from excess drinking and researching) [author's note, I am merely speculating here, but why else would he be up so late?]: "Hey."
OCTOPUS: "Squish."
BRIGHTWELL: "Isn't it past your bedtime?"
OCTOPUS: [belligerent] "SQUISH!"
BRIGHTWELL: "Fine, it's your life. There's some beer and herring in the fridge if you want. Remember we have to get up early in the morning. We're doing a bunch of experiments where we squeeze you through unbelievably small holes in your tank."
BRIGHTWELL and OCTOPUS squeeze past each other uncomfortably in the stair well. OCTOPUS heads to fridge for snack. BRIGHTWELL passes out. OCTOPUS and BRIGHTWELL wake up in each other's arms in the morning, both smelling of herring and beer.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hee hee! Snorf! Giggle! :) Awesome post! I'm so tired and so loopy from lack of sleep with moving activities that herring, beer, and having 6 extra arms sound pretty damn good to me right about now.

Wasn't the NOVA program last night the BOMB, or what???