First Annual Stuffed Zoo Animal Staring Contest
Hi everyone, Finn here. I am now an intern for SZ’s new Indoor Rainy Day Physical Activity Coalition and Anti-Boredom Committee. It’s my job to come up with fun new ideas for activities the animals can do together on rainy days. You see, normally the chimps are playing basketball, the hippos jump-roping, and so on. But it gets rainy here, and no one likes to do those things in the rain – especially stuffed animals who all have different washing and drying instructions.
Here are a few ideas I’ve come up with so far:
Macaroni Ornament Making Day. This was rejected after the orangutan’s protested. They didn’t want to get glitter in their fur. They said it’s impossible to get glitter out of orangutan fur (how’d they all know THAT?)
Australian Yoga Day. I didn’t even get to finish explaining this one. Like, they didn’t even listen to me when I tried to tell them what was Australian about it (I had these great brown sleeping bags, and we were all going to pretend to be doing yoga positions inside a kangaroo pouch!). Stuffed animals, with the exception of those limber stuffed chimps, don’t like yoga, I guess. They’re all either too firm, or too floppy and soft.
As I was generating the list, wanting to do a good job, several owls showed up unexpectedly at SZ. I talked to Barney and Humphrey, but it turns out it was actually Henry the Stuffed Owl Hand Puppet, who was receiving all these visitors. After they told me that, it made more sense. They all kind of looked like him.
Then, with all the Henry look-alikes watching me slave away at my notes, I came up with the best idea of all. A staring contest! Any animal can stare – you don’t have to be flexible, you don’t have to get glitter in your hair – even stuffed fish can stare really good!
Henry and his relatives have agreed to help me arrange the events and do the judging (no one knows more about staring than stuffed owls!), and the next time it rains, it’ll be great! I love my new job!
