Baths, Hippos and Other Rubrics

I'll be quite candid with you, I like to take baths. And so does 50% of the population of Hutto. The other half likes to give hippos baths.

Now I have nothing against hippo bathing. It has great possibilities. It could even become a national sport. And since Hutto has been declared the Hippo Capitol of the World, they should have the honor of starting this athletic event.

How fast can you bathe a hippo? That depends. In Hutto, you have to undress it first. There are 87 concrete hippos (unless, unbeknownst to me, Mayor Fowler has ordered more ) in this small Texas town, and as I understand it, most of them dress up in fancy clothes.

The one in front of Hottie Tan, the local tanning salon, sports an orange-and-yellow polka-dot bikini; there's the hippo by El Poblanito's wearing gaucho pants and a black sombrero; and, at Snuffy's Bar and Grill, there's a hippo chick ready to hop on your Harley with you wearing biker clothes and motorcycle goggles.

You might wonder in this case, since the crucial factor of any sporting event, is time: How long does it take to undress a hippo?

Well, as I see it, that depends on whether you choose the 7-ton fellow, the 700-pounders, or the wimpy ones who weigh in at only 235 pounds. It's not easy to lift the leg of a 7-tonner to remove gaucho pants.

And there's another problem. After the speed bath, you have to redress these mammoth hippopotami.

Redressing concrete critters isn't easy. Ask anyone in Austin and they'll tell you they're having a heck of a time redressing their granite statue. "Well," they say, "It's almost like redressing a granite statute." Heck of a deal.

Seems they aren't trying to speed wash their rock, either. Like the folks in Hutto, half of the population wants to leave no stone unturned, and the other half .... ahem, the rest have their own set of drummers . . . .

I think if the Austin folk copy Hutto's example: dress their mammoth rock in fancy clothes and start a Rock Bathing Contest, they can, like the Moses of their particular piece of granite, redirect the waters of the Salton Sea and END THE 10-YEAR DROUGHT in Texas.

If it would make you feel more in tune with the Texas crowd, you can certainly sit down and bathe with the hippos. But make sure you bring some fancy trappings along, so you have vestures to redress, afterwards.
Baths, Hippos and Other Rubrics © 2005 Chaeli Sullivan