More Definitions

This is a meerkat. (The reason why meerkats are relevant to the carpool is not an interesting story. For those of you who really want to know, please see the asterisks below.)

According to wikipedia.org, a meerkat is "a small mammal and a member of the mongoose family." As you can see, meerkats are friggin' cute.

Some interesting things about meerkats (all from wikipedia):

1. According to popular African belief, the meerkat is known as the "sun angel," which protects villages from the "moon devil," (whatever the hell that is). Meerkats also protect villages from werewolves. Even though I'm not one for violence, I have to admit that I would love to see a meerkat and a werewolf go toe-to-toe.

2. A group of meerkats is called "mob" or a "gang." (Strangely, they don't have any known gang signs.)

3. The "alpha pair" meerkats (the leaders of a "mob" or "gang") often scent-mark (pee on) subordinates of the group to express their authority, and this is usually followed by the subordinates grooming the alphas and licking their faces. And that's just gross.

4. More than one field researcher has reported witnessing meerkats in some sort of singing ceremony that they compared with yodelling. Some believe that the meerkats' songs resemble what we would think of as "the blues." The lyrics usually translate roughly to, "Oh, Lord, why do the 'alpha pair' keep pissing on me?"

5. Because meerkats are social creatures that live in underground colonies, one meerkat usually stands guard outside, like a sentry, to warn other meerkats of trouble. If they fall asleep on the job, the alpha pair typically pee on them, which pretty much happens anyway.

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Today, Mumbles and I were in the carpool when he said the word "meerkat." I don't know why he said it -- maybe I was starting to say a word starting with "M" and he was trying to predict what I was about to say -- but it prompted us to get the dictionary and see what a "meerkat" was.

Like I said, not interesting.

[photo by Neils Endres]