Mongoose

Humor is perhaps a sense of intellectual perspective: an awareness that some things are really important, others not; and that the two kinds are most oddly jumbled in everyday affairs. ~Christopher Morley



It's 6am. I am sitting on my couch, drinking my cafe au lait (I have to say that - because there seems to be more lait than cafe) - and I was contemplating what to write about.

Mongoose.

Why in God's name, at six in the morning would a mongoose enter my mind? But my friends, that's how my mind works.

To be perfectly honest, I was not sure what a mongoose looked like. Was not sure where in the world they live, what their behavior is like, etc.

That picture makes me want to laugh. Then again - it kind of freaks me out.

Apparently there are 33 species of mongoose (who knew?) and they live mainly in Africa. So, why in the world did I think of freaking mongoose. Sometimes I like to think it is my mind's way (or the divine) trying to tell me something. hahahhaa. Maybe the mongoose has tendencies or behavior I need to be aware of. Or maybe.. I am just freaking insane.

Turns out, they eat insects, crabs, earthworms, lizards, snakes, chickens, and rodents. (Eww) The Indian Mongoose and others are popularly used to fight and kill venomous snakes, including vipers. They can do this because of their agility and cunning, their thick coat, and mutations in their acetylcholine receptors which render them resistant or immune to snake venoms.

My favorite factoid about the Mongoose is the fact that it releases this high pitched sound, apparently it sounds like giggling, when it mates. How hilarious is that? They say that the giggling is also heard when they are "courting" a mate.

THEN it suddenly hit me.. one of my absolute FAVORITE stories as a child was Riki-Tiki-Tavi by Ridyard Kipling. Do you remember that one? It was about a pet mongoose that saves its human family from two deadly cobras. Of course I like the mongoose!

Maybe the whole point was to bring me to a gift I should buy my niece, the book - Riki-Tiki-Tavi.. so that she, too, can have some random 6am mongoose thought at the age of 37.