The Penguin Story

Sometime last Summer I had the strangest nightmare that involved giant penguins. Karlo and I were on his motorcycle driving either to or from work and there were these mobster penguins lurking around every corner. They were each about 3 feet tall and were shooting at us with big rifles. It was incredibly realistic. You would think these would be cartoon penguins in the dream, but no, they were totally real. I didn’t tell Karlo about the dream, but when we hopped onto the bike for our morning commute I said, “Watch out for the penguins.” Nothing like completely confusing Karlo first thing in the morning. It’s usually pretty easy to do.

So later that day I told both Karlo and Jill the story about the giant shooting penguins dream . . . and it’s been a long running joke ever since. Once day during the winter Jill and her husband popped over early on a Sunday. I had to scramble to get dressed because I didn’t want to greet them at the door in my PJs - especially since the PJs had penguins all over them! I figured I would never live that down and it would be pointed out as the cause for the penguin nightmares.

Jill’s daughter will always think of me when she sees penguins now. She even gave me one of her silly string bracelets. Of course it’s in the shape of, you guessed it:



Then she drew me a special ‘shooting penguin’ picture and when her aunt saw it, she of course questioned it. So the story now went to their extended family . . . a few days later said aunt is shopping at Marshalls and runs into a shirt with giant penguins on it and proceeds to BUY IT FOR ME. All this from one silly dream. This sure has been one long running joke. Before you know it I’ll have an entire penguin collection. Pretty soon I’m going to want one for a pet. Maybe some time after I get my duck.