[321] in Humor
HUMOR: Elephant Blows Trainer
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (abennett@MIT.EDU)
Tue Jun 14 10:11:41 1994
From: abennett@MIT.EDU
To: humor@MIT.EDU
Date: Tue, 14 Jun 94 10:08:44 EDT
Date: 14 Jun 1994 09:52:17 +0500
From: "Sharalee Field" <sharalee@planning.mit.edu>
Minimalist Mail FWD>elephant blows trainer through wall
GASSY ELEPHANT BLOWS HER TRAINER THRU A WALL
Sassy, the 2-ton elephant, queen of the Spalding Brothers Tent Circus,
suffered a bout with gas that nearly killed her trainer, and blasted
several holes in the striped tent where she was practicing her prancing.
Now dubbed Sassy the Gassy Pachyderm, the 14-year-old beast snorted
approximately 15 gallons of red-hot Tex-Mex chili cooking outside
the tent for a Rotary fund raiser.
Sassy developed a taste for chili as a mere 500-pound babe when she
lived with a herd of cows near El Paso, TX. The rancher held regular
cook-outs, and let Sassy lick the Chili pot after the guests had gone.
"The hotter the better," recalls rancher Antonio Guayabera. "She'd poke
her little fuzzy trunk in there and slurp 'til it was clean as a whistle.
"I'd notice the next day, though, the cows would stick to one end of
the field and Sassy would be all by herself at the other.
"I always thought someone was burning garbage, but I finally realized it
was Sassy and cut off her bean supply. It was making the cows' milk sour."
Antonio, who got the baby elephant as a gag gift from an oilman friend
of his, sold Sassy to the circus and trainer Fritz Hildebrand made her
queen of the center ring.
"I discovered the first month I had Sassy that she loved chili, but it
didn't love her," says Fritz. "We had to keep the roustabouts with
their open cook- stoves away, because she would smell those beans
simmering and start hooting and hollering to get it.
"We only let her have her way once," Fritz says, shaking his head. "We
had to walk her a mile away and leave her penned there a whole day."
Human memories dim, but elephants never forget, and with chili pots
bubbling it was just a matter of time before Sassy slipped her trunk
through a hole in the tent and started gobbling.
"I knew I had to get her out of there - and fast," says Fritz from his
hospital bed. "But I wasn't fast enough. As I led her away, the gas
attack started. I should have known better than to stand too close,
but the first blast blew me right through the tent and into a trailer
parked outside."
Fritz suffered 15 broken bones, including one arm, one leg, his
collarbone, several ribs and fingers. Subsequent blasts ripped
through the big top before Sassy was banished to a distant field.
"I know she feels bad," concludes the forgiving trainer. "Sassy's a
chiliholic, and she just can't help herself."
