Words and Thoughts: Boobies, Tits, and Stankies: A Scholarly Article

Hello again, alleged readers! I spent most of Tuesday last week up a tree, as usual; so that is not newsworthy. Probably not even noteworthy. However, while I was up said tree, a man came by, who had absolutely no snacks to offer, which was unfortunate, but again, not noteworthy. Here’s the kicker though: The guy stopped, and then just stood there gawking at the tree I was in.

So, there we were. He’s standing on the ground, looking up, presumably at me. I’m sitting in the tree, now uncomfortably staring at him.

Like I said, he had no snacks. I know this because about fifteen seconds into our staring contest, I shouted, “You got any snacks?”

As you can probably guess, from the cryptic foreshadowing I’ve employed up to this point, his answer was “No”.

So, I politely yelled back, “Well then go on, get! Be gone with you, you snackless doofus!”

He did not go on, nor get. Apparently, this man was an ornithologist; a bird expert. From what I can tell, if you just stare at birds long enough, and then you’re an ornithologist. I thought, “if this man, with no snacks whatsoever, can do it, then so can Stav Knudsenen, who would have snacks if not for this man not having any to give me.” This guy had probably been staring at birds for 20 years. Nobody, except ol’ Stares at Trees there, has that kinda time. I knew we’d have to accelerate the learning curve a bit. So I spent all day Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday in the office staring at pictures of Big Bird. The way I see it, this man spent 20 years looking sporadically at different small birds. I spent three straight business days staring at nothing but one massive bird.

As such, much like ol’ No Snacks there, I must now be an ornithologist. And as such, please consider this whole fax, but particularly the following study, a scholarly publication on birds. I have shown an advance copy of my article to Dillon from work, and a possum from my back yard, so rest assured, it has been peer reviewed.

Stav Knudsenen’s Scholarly Study of Bird Names I Found on The Internet – By Stav Knudsenen

Greetings once more, supposed scholars! Recently, I spent three hours on the Internet. For 45 consecutive minutes of those three hours, I looked up the names of birds. Here is what I found:

• Boobies: These are large birds, called Boobies
  • Some of them have blue feet, known as Blue Footed Boobies; others have red feet, these are Red Footed Boobies; Brown Boobies though, yellow feet. How about that?
• Tits: These are small birds, and they are called tits.
  • Oddly enough, the Fluffy-Backed Tit-Babbler, is not a tit, rather it’s an Old World Babbler. Fascinating!
• Stank-Hens: Goofy looking birds, sometimes called Stankies
  • Apparently, these are just Common Moorhens, and Stank-Hen may be archaic terminology. In my scholarly opinion though, we should just go back to calling them Stankies.

In conclusion, there are likely several more birds not listed here. I mean to go about discovering them. And when I do, I shall name the first bird I discover, a Snackless Doofus, in honor of the individual who inspired me to become the ornithologist I am today.

Sincerely,

Stav Knudsenen, Ornithologist; CEO