Addressing The Elephant In The Room

Dear Mr. Elephant,

Why are you in the room?

Sorry, I’m jumping ahead. I should ask if I can call you Mr. Elephant. Can I call you Mr. Elephant? Or is Mr. Elephant your father?

Time out. I can’t stop laughing.

Would you like me to call you something else? I can call you by your DJ name – Grandmaster Trunk. No? You’re right, it’s too long. So is your DJ name.

What about Ellie? Right, you’re not a girl. Hmm. Have any nicknames as a baby elephant? Peanuts? Thunder thighs? Stomper? I’m not making any progress here. I’m just going to call you Mr. Elephant.

Mr. Elephant, are you aware that people are always wanting to address the elephant in the room, a.k.a you? Oh, you’re not? Well, that’s a plot twist. Am I saying it correctly? “Address the elephant”? People aren’t saying, “Dress the elephant” are they?

Now that I think of it, you are naked. Put on some pants. Or some socks, at least. There are children here!

No socks, huh? Do you have a big diaper we can put on you? Oh, you don’t wear diapers? You wear potato sacks? Makes sense.

By the way, sorry for all of the questions. Are you tired of them? I’m tired of them? Oh, that wasn’t a question.

Back to the reason I’m here.

People always want to address the elephant in the room. It’s like, “Oh, let’s finally talk to it.” I don’t get it. Addressing the elephant in the room should be the first thing that people do. Hello!? There’s an elephant in the room!

Your interpreter is telling me that people say it as a figure of speech. As if to say, “Let’s talk about what is clearly on everyone’s mind.”

No, that’s where you’re wrong. It is not a figure of speech and you are not on everyone’s mind. You are in the room. Probably off in the corner playing tic-tac-elephant-toe, or whatever game you burly animals play.

You don’t get the respect you deserve. You should be treated like the Queen of England. You should be treated like someone who just won the lottery. You should be treated like the only kid on the playground that has a soccer ball.

Everyone should be sucking up to you.

And yet they don’t. They ignore you, until someone finally speaks up and declares that they should address you. Isn’t that thoughtful?

I don’t know how you stand for it. I would sit down if I were you. Schedule a sit-in with your buddies. Make a Facebook event and invite everyone. If anyone replies “Maybe”, you can’t trust them.

Quickly, before I forget. One question…what you gon’ do with all that junk, all that junk inside your trunk?

You’re going to eat it? Oh, well that’s nice to hear. I thought you were going to say something far worse, that would be repeated on radios everywhere for many years until it finally died down and retired to the weird part of YouTube.

Anyways, Sir E. (notice how I’ve given you a status upgrade), let me get back to why I’m addressing you.

Why are you in the room? How did you get in here? The door isn’t big enough. This is like when Hagrid showed up at Harry Potter’s house and then all of a sudden he’s inside the house. How did he get in the door? He was bigger than the door!

(My Harry Potter memory is fuzzy, so if you feel the need to correct anything I said in that last paragraph…DON’T DO IT. How dare you try to embarrass me on my own post.)

I mean, if I walked in a room and saw an elephant in there, I would have a lot of questions. I’d also be frightened. Elephants can be frightening.

Oh, but not you, King Elephant, not you. I wouldn’t call you frightening. No. Not at all. Nope. Why are my legs trembling? I’m going to fall. No I’m not. Yeah, I’m going down.

I fell.

I don’t mean to offend you, but you’re quite big. I can’t possibly picture any situation where you got in this room.

But while I have you here, I must ask, how come I found your footprints in the butter? How did that happen? Were you chilling in the fridge again?

I don’t want to see your footprints in my butter again, you hear me? Of course you hear me. Your ears are the size of hula-hoops.

Someone wants a plane that loops a loop. Me, I want a hula-hoop. 

Well, I guess I should let you go. Or in this case, let you stay. I don’t know how you got in this room, but I’m certain you can’t escape back to your home address. It must feel like prison to you. Maybe you can dig a hole through the wall with a toothbrush. Hint hint.

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I went off topic a lot and asked about 47 questions today. Mr. Elephant didn’t want to talk. Who knew elephants were introverts?

All I wanted to do was address the elephant in the room and what did I get?

Peanuts.