Around 5 years ago or so, I was staying with my parents in their small farm house that sat on an acreage that backed onto two correctional facilities. As you can imagine there wasn't a lot of foot traffic in this area, or even sidewalks. The neighbors on either side would require a 10 minute walk. In their own way I believe my parents to be slightly misanthropic people, they enjoy the isolation.
Even so, the community was largely religious; even though it wasn't the majority, there were Jehovah's Witnesses, and they did eventually make their rounds. It was a fairly bright afternoon, and I believe my parents were outside working in the garden or something. I, of course, was inside on the computer, or watching comedy on TV. They both rushed inside and began peering through the windows apprehensively. It was unusual for them to behave this way, but I recognized the behaviour from TV and movies: a bill collector had come calling. But wait, that didn't make any sense, my parents were fairly well off. What then?
Jehovah's Witnesses, two of them (they often travel in pairs), coming down the long drive way. My parents had seen them walking along the road and decided they could effectively pretend to not be home with 2 cars in the drive way. When I began to question their actions they leapt on the opportunity for me to fill in.
"Hey, you go out there!" My mom urged, "You like fucking with religious types, right?"
"Sure, why not?"
I grabbed the nearest religiously incendiary book I could find, I think it was some sort of subgenius publication of a world religion encyclopedia, and marched out to the driveway to sit on the bumper of my mom's car. Just as I cracked the book open the pair came around the corner and began to grin in a way I imagine a wolf would when it discovers prey. As they got closer their smiles diminished slightly. They probably read the cover of my book hoping to find an in for their conversation, as any good sales person would. Instead they decided to talk about their literature first.
Penguins! I guess starting with Jesus and God had become either boring or too difficult a sell for these people, so they developed side stories to write about in the Watchtower. Strange articles about random things that they could use to segue into tirades about family values. So apparently penguins mate for life. And because of this these people were able to conclude that God intends for everything to pair up for good, like on Noah's Ark.
It was at this point that I mentioned that I had heard that flamingos actually do the opposite of this, and mate with a different partner every year (checking Wikipedia now, I'm not sure the information about either birds is entirely true.) This erroneous data appeared to frustrate my visitors. Under their clenched smiles they said "isn't that interesting?" Then quickly diverted the conversation into their intended subject. Before I allowed them to tell me too much about their group worship I tried to interest them in my own made up religion called Zeoism. But just like any religious type that hears about it, or any salesperson being sold something, they decided to pack up their wares and move on.
At the time I marked myself victorious and went back inside. Thinking back on it, I wonder: Am I a penguin or a flamingo? If you were to make a judgement based on previous observed behaviour (as any self respecting Taxonomist would), it could be determined with certainty that I am a flamingo. But I feel rather strongly that I am not. And even though they're not as bright and colourful, or as thin, I would much rather think of myself as a penguin.
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