Endless this war against reinvented wheels?

A funny thing happened at the zoo yesterday.

An elephant was playing with his tractor tire, and he got more and more excited. He wheeled the thing around like a pro, and actually pushed it right towards me, whereupon it hit the heavy electrified fence with a giant THWACK! At that point, the elephant’s behavior became downright amorous, and he actually tried to have sex with the tire.

I kid you not.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_K4HO-wgLk&feature=youtu.be

Whether this was because people were staring at him, I don’t know. Was he being an exhibitionist? Was this attempted date rape? In any case, the tire failed utterly to reciprocate, and the elephant walked away, only to walk over to and stick his trunk into a huge pile of elephant dung.

I don’t mean to sound superstitious, but why? Why was I treated to this bizarre spectacle? Elephants symbolize the GOP, do they not? Might this have been some sort of omen from the gods?

And what might the wheel symbolize?

The wheel has also become a strong cultural and spiritual metaphor for a cycle or regular repetition (see chakra, reincarnation, Yin and Yang among others). As such and because of the difficult terrain, wheeled vehicles were forbidden in old Tibet.

The winged wheel is a symbol of progress, seen in many contexts including the coat of arms of Panama and the logo of the Ohio State Highway Patrol.

So if we stay with the symbolism, what would attempting to have sex with a wheel mean?

And what about a wheel refusing to reciprocate?

Anyway, I got the hell out of there when I saw the elephant digging into the shit pile, because zoo elephants are known to throw shit at people, and I was taking no chances.

Some cultural metaphors are best avoided.


Posted

in

by

Tags:

Comments

4 responses to “Endless this war against reinvented wheels?”

  1. Veeshir Avatar

    I’m stealing your vid. I hope you don’t mind.

    Sometimes you’re the tire, sometimes you’re the trunk.

    Just once I’d like to be the elephant.

  2. Eric Scheie Avatar

    You are welcome to steal anything you want here at any time! I am flattered.

    Now that I think about it, I have a tire in my trunk whenever I’m on the road….

  3. Joseph Hertzlinger Avatar

    This gives a whole new meaning to the phrase “machine screw”…