My View From the cheap seats

Every now and then a news story comes along that raises a question so obvious, so unavoidable, that it completely overshadows the story itself.

This week’s question is this: How do you lose a giraffe?

Not your car keys. Not your reading glasses. Not the TV remote that somehow always winds up in the refrigerator. A giraffe. You know, the animal with the long neck.

Gracie, a giraffe living on a private ranch in Texas, wandered off about a month ago. Thankfully, she was found safe a few days ago, and everyone involved is understandably relieved. I don’t make light of the concern her owners must have felt. If one of my pets disappeared for a month, I’d be worried sick.

That said, I still have questions.

We’re talking about an animal that weighs roughly 1,200 pounds and stands nearly 20 feet tall. A giraffe doesn’t exactly blend into the scenery. If a wildebeest escaped, I’d understand. Those things are built like oversized deer and could disappear into the brush before you’ve finished saying, “Wasn’t there supposed to be a wildebeest around here?”

But a giraffe is basically a school bus on stilts. It is one of the few animals in the world that can probably look into a second-story window without asking permission.

Officials said Gracie wandered into an extremely remote part of Texas, so rugged that it couldn’t even be reached by vehicle. Fair enough. Texas has some mighty lonely country.

Still, the search included helicopters.

Now, I’m no aviation expert, but one of the advantages of being in a helicopter is that you’re looking down on everything. Trees. Creeks. Fences. Dirt roads. And, one would think, a giraffe whose head is practically waving at you from the treetops.

How do you fly over a giraffe?

I can understand missing a rabbit. A squirrel. Maybe even a coyote. But a giraffe seems like the kind of thing that would stand out.

“Hey, Bob, what’s that over there?”

“I don’t know. Circle back. It might be the world’s tallest mailbox.”

I suppose Gracie may have been lying down. Apparently giraffes occasionally do that, although from what I’ve seen, getting back up looks about as graceful as me trying to get out of a beanbag chair. Or maybe she found the only grove of trees in Texas that happened to be exactly the height of a giraffe. At this point, I’m trying to give everybody the benefit of the doubt.

The important thing is that Gracie was finally spotted and safely returned home. Her owners must have been overjoyed, and I’m genuinely glad the story ended the way it did. We hear enough bad news these days. It’s nice when one ends with everyone smiling, including, I assume, Gracie.

I do have one suggestion, though.

Put a bell around her neck. It works for my neighbor’s cat. If Gracie had been wearing a bell, folks in three counties would’ve known when she wandered by.

Or maybe one of those little tracking tags people attach to their keys. Although, knowing technology, the app would probably announce, “Your giraffe was last seen nearby,” which isn’t especially helpful when “nearby” covers about 200 square miles.

Either way, Gracie is back where she belongs, and that’s good news. I just hope somebody starts taking attendance a little more carefully.

Because if you can lose a giraffe, I don’t even want to think about what happens the day the elephants decide they’ve had enough and head for Oklahoma.