1 post tagged “giant squid”

This post is about my least favorite critter in the world: the Squid, Giant or Otherwise.

Okay. Okay. *deep, calming breaths* Seriously. Who needs all those legs? I can just barely handle the octopus with its 8 legs, but squid have 10! That's like... 4 more! But perhaps I'm being too reactionary. Maybe they evolved them in response to a pressing need to... what? Stir a lot of cake batter all at once? Massage a bunch of clients? Play both sides of a tennis match? Come on, Nature, there's no good gods-damned reason for this aberration of all that is Holy and Yummy!

"But Akela!" you say, "As one of Nature's creatures yourself, and one that, by all accounts, is widely feared and misunderstood, shouldn't you be more sympathetic to your fellow living beings?" Well, to that, I reply: How the hell did you get in my house? Secondly, get that thing out of your mouth. Thirdly, nice shoes... what're those, Jimmy Choo? Fourthly, can you scratch this itch between my shoulderblades? I just can't reach it. **leg spasms**

Okay. What were we talking about? Oh, yes, sympathy for a fellow beastie. Well, Margaret Friggin' Mead, I point you toward Exhibit A:

I mean, come ON! You can't seriously expect me to cuddle up to this thing like we're fellow Mensa members!

What in the Hell of the Telemarketers is going on here? WHO NEEDS ARMS THAT LONG? I'm thinking evolution went something like this:

"Hey, check me out, I'm this really horrible, hatchet-headed monstrosity with no discernable sensory organs! If people see me, they're likely to run in one direction for at least 10 minutes, and man am I hungry! No respectable fish, crab, or realistically edible animal is going to come anywhere near me. How will I eat? Hey, I know! *makes attempt to snap in sudden epiphany, but fails because of its nightmarish lack of bones* I'll slowly, over hundreds of years, develop in such a way that my arms will stretch out so far from my freakish body that no one will even know they belong to me! Sweet! My prey will wander into my clutches as unaware and innocent as a newborn lamb, a mammal of which I can't possibly know anything because we inhabit two completely different and separate worlds, but you catch my drift, invisible listener! MUAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!

"...

"Crap. How will I get it to my mouth?"

Whoa, I almost started to feel sorry for the benighted thing. I gotta nip that in the bud right now. Oh, and by the way, BEAKS? Why in the howling madness do they need beaks? I'm just barely able to entertain the idea that avians descended from reptiles... do I really need to see a connection between birds and squid? Imagine, if you will, this scene:

EXTERIOR, DAY: A barnacle-encrusted galleon plies its way through the choppy waters just off the coast of an island nation, a fearsome pirate captain at the helm. He's everything you expect in a scary buccaneer: wild beard, eyepatch, pegleg, and on his shoulder, echoing his every utterance, his beloved pet squid.

BLACKGOATEE
Avast, ye scurvy dogs! I'll keelhaul the lot o' ye if'n ye don't get this miserable wreck of a ship hightailin' toward clearer waters! Strike sail and set out for the Africas! What say ye, Polly?

POLLY
(muffled clacking)

BLACKGOATEE
(face in palm) Arr.

So, to sum up: Fewer legs are better. Bones are good. Beaks belong on birds. And for the love of all that is decent, have a freakin' FACE, people.

I'd like to be
Under the sea
In an Octopus's Garden, in the shade
"Octopus's Garden", The Beatles