Evidence that one can sometimes check one's allergic rashes against one's animal encyclopaedia and find a perfect match

I've been thinking today about the giraffe.








And I've been thinking only one thing ........................... WHY?

Here's a couple of whole ones, just to make my point more forcefully.




I don't get it.  Granted, they don't look any weirder than camels .... here's a camel, just to illustrate this ....





... but, then, at least camels are USEFUL, in which case they can be forgiven, a bit like having a husband who looks like a medieval gargoyle but who can whip up a cracking little chocolate mousse or mend a broken iPod.

Other things about nature intrigue me, too.

1. Why is it that, on hot days, wasps, even when there is a table laden with jam sandwiches, sticky cakes and fizzy drinks, still want a bite of a human who tastes of sweat and cheap suncream?

2. And how come flies, wasps, bluebottles and bees cannot see that there is a piece of glass between them and fresh air and keep head-butting it, but as soon as you come near them with a newspaper, they can see well enough to dodge it, if not hang around long enough to get a quick read of the main headlines and the editorial?

3. Also, why is it that, when you find a dead frog on the side of the pavement, it has already arranged itself into a science experiment shape?   Are they hard-wired for this?


Here are two more googled dead frogs, just to prove that I'm not imagining it.




Now, before you start thinking, 'What kind of weirdo googles for dead frogs?' and come to the conclusion that I'm that kind of person, I'll take you back to giraffes and you can finally find out the answer to the question, 'What the hell was this post's title about?'

When my son was little, he had a severe allergic reaction to something or other (it could have been his parents ...) and developed a rash all up his arms that looked exactly like a giraffe's skin.  That meant that each arm and leg looked like a giraffe's neck.  Here's a giraffe's neck so you get the idea.



Now, you may be the calm kind of parent who wouldn't have worried about your child's limbs having transformed into contestants for the I-Look-a-Lot-Like-a-Bizarre-Zoo-Creature competition, but I found it disconcerting.  In fact, he looked so odd that they brought all the available doctors in to look at Giraffe Child and took photographs. (At the time, I had a few patches of brown on the backs of my hands which I always develop in the summer - I think they're called liver spots - but I kept my hands in my pockets in case they started thinking heredity and started asking awkward questions about previous partners.)

The giraffe rash cleared up eventually, and we could safely take the family to a wildlife park again without worrying about abductions.

But, I have to say, I'd have preferred an average rash with a few pink spots and slight reddening of the skin.  Our family never seems to do anything normally.

Yeah, yeah, I KNOW that didn't surprise you.  No need to roll your eyes like that.

Comments

  1. So the answer to the question why...was it so you'd have something to describe your son's rash by..?

    Giraffes don't need a why - they're just cute. Earwigs on the other hand, have no reason nor rhyme to them.

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  2. Those Giraffes, always looking down on us. They've got some neck!

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  3. With frogs it's just the way tendons pull the limbs when in a relaxed state. As for giraffes - it's all to do with camouflage. Apparently. Or bad fashion sense. One of the two. As for your son... is he exceptionally tall by any chance?

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  4. Giraffe rash? Giraffe rash. I've never heard anything like it. Sorry, I'm just laughing now at Marin H's comment.

    Pointless post F. Except for the humour. And the points about allergies. Always useful when you have kids.

    I hate wasps. We have those wasp catcher things - like large glass vases that we stuff with jam - all around the outside of the barn, hanging up, waiting for the blighters to crawl in, and DIE!!!

    xx

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  5. Why do we need wasp? - that's the real question.

    As for the frogs - they're mid-leap, in the attempt to escape from the car that's about to mow them dow....

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  6. Well , we don't need wasp .... and we certainly don't need waspS .
    At least son had chosen a nice animal to morph into . Think of the orthodontic bills had he decided to become become a crocodile .

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  7. Minging rash. I hope you didn't touch him in case it was contagious.

    That was well funny about the frogs - and it's totally true! Why is that? It's the same as birds dying with their feet in the air - it defies gravity.

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  8. There really should be an award for Best Co-Mingling of Random Topics in a Single Blog Post. Oooh, the statuette could be a bronze frog! Consider yourself thusly awarded!

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  9. I read somewhere a camel was 'a horse designed by a committee'... and I'd go somewhere with that if I wasn't busy trying to think of a rhyme for 'earwig' after the first comment.

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  10. You should never have had children. I bet yours won't dare to have any in case they come in handy for some of your alternative uses. A sadist, that's what you are.

    By the way, I always save wasps and bees in the house by following them round with my plastic beaker and fly swat thingy, the latter for shoving them into the plastic beaker and trapping them inside with - and then I let them OUT!

    Flies on the other hand I gas.

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  11. I never thought how giraffes and camels looked alike! Thank you for opening my eyes, Fran.

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  12. And here I thought you were going to tell us you're allergic to giraffes. Now that would be a tough allergen to avoid!

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  13. I have to own up to having similar spots up both my shins last week! Two varieties of doctor's creams only made them worse, and it took liberal applications of good old Sudocrem to see them off... Curiouser and curiouser...

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