“Horses don’t like me, but wolves like me,” says Lulu* over dinner tonight.
“And rhinoceroses,” adds her husband.
“Oh, yes, Robby the Rhino liked me very much. But that was because he saw me with my friend Jane, the veterinarian who collected his specimen.” We then pester Lulu until she tells us this story:
Robby the Rhino was a very fine rhino. His sperm was in much demand, so for many years it was collected by a man who would sit in the back of a Volkswagen Beetle with an artificial vagina. Robby the Rhino would mount the Volkswagen, and produce his specimen.
But as time went on, poor Robby became arthritic. He could no longer mount the Volkswagen. So Jane used to collect his specimen, stimulating him while he walked and hobbled and limped around inside his enclosure.
I was visiting [the big US city] where Jane lived, and she invited me to come visit Robby at the zoo. She was wearing a white zip-up lab coat, and she gave me one also. As soon as Robby caught sight of Jane in her white coat, he got…very happy. We went into his cage, and Jane was working on collecting his specimen. Then she said to me, “Lulu, he likes to have his nose patted. Why don’t you pat his nose?”
Now, a rhinoceros has a very, very big nose. With a horn on the end of it. I’m thinking that if I get close enough to touch him that I could be mincemeat. And then I look out of the cage, and there is a five-year-old boy with his grandparents, all of them staring at what Jane is doing.
So while Jane is saying, “Just pat his nose, he likes it,” I’m thinking that when I do that, they’ll be staring at me. But then I remind myself that not one person in [big American city] knows me, so I get up my courage and I pat Robbie’s nose. And then he gives Jane his specimen. He really did like it.
Now Robby the Rhino is dead, but his sperm lives on. And I, for one, will never forget this story!
* All names have been changed, including the names of rhinos.