Yesterday I had the pleasure of speaking at Rutgers University in front of around 150 high school students, which was a lot better than speaking behind them. The subject was humor columns, so it goes without saying that walruses came up multiple times. I mean, so many times that I completely lost track. Like, at least seven times. As is evident from my enthusiasm, I felt proud to include walruses because they are left out of so many aspects of society: sleep-overs, camping trips, and even games of Monopoly, which is a shame because I think they'd be pretty good at it...

But then it happened. When the speech ended, I was approached by a girl who told me that her friend did not know what a walrus was. My immediate thought was that maybe she was kidding. She had to be, right? I mean, these are walruses we're talking about here, not some unpopular animal like a dog or a cat. But she was not kidding at all, so I needed to resort to explaining characteristics of a walrus:

They're like seals but with fangs, I first told her.

And they have whiskers, I added, and they are really heavy and live in the water.

But she still was not familiar with it, despite my very vivid details. In retrospect, maybe I should have mentioned that a walrus is a lot like Toys 'R Us but with an incorrectly spelled wall replacing the toys. However, I don't know if that would have worked either. Alas, she walked away telling me that she would look it up on Google. While I am glad she will finally get her answer as to the definition of a walrus, and will hopefully even get to see a walrus wearing a dress, it makes me think that none of us -- and I do mean none of us -- have done our job of correctly promoting walruses...

So with that, I plan to change everything. And I don't mean that I will convert all of my dollars into quarters; I mean that I will do whatever I can to inform people of the past, present and future of walruses. I will tell them of their many purposes: opening cans, playing whisker violins and even serving as very large paper weights for when a rock simply won't cut it. A year from now, or maybe even tomorrow, I want to be able to stand at a random street corner -- preferably one where there is no crime taking place -- and yell out "walrus!" and someone will yell back to me that a walrus would be a great letter opener or that a walrus could be a state senator if not for its inability to speak, or sign documents, or use ATM machines, among other minor technicalities...

And when all is said and done, if one walrus comes up to me to shake my hand and thank me, then I will know my time has been well spent...

But I digress.

Greg Gagliardi is a teacher and writer. His stream-of-consciousness weekly humor column, "Progressive Revelations," has been ongoing since 1998. (http://www.ProgressiveRevelations.com)

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