Things that make me happy (part 1)

Because I’m feeling somewhat under the weather due to a touch of stomach flu, I’ve decided to put today’s writing time into happy thoughts. The following occurred about two years ago, but it still makes me smile, and people laugh when I tell the story, so I thought I’d write it down to share to a larger audience.

At a recent steampunk convention I was at I noticed there was a sort of scavenger hunt in which one could participate. I eagerly signed up, and learned that the things to be collected were stamps from different locations at the con, which you had to figure out from the clues. Several of them turned out to be in the dealer’s room, and in order to get your stamp you had to do some funny little thing the dealer asked you to do. These varied from doing a “proper villain’s laugh” to singing a short bit from a song about balloons to decorating a little steampunk cog and adding it to a board of interlinked and moving cogs, and other similar things.

There was one dealer I located, but I noticed two girls were there before me — so I politely waited and watched. The two girls were standing in front of the little desk/table, swaying slightly and making low groaning sounds. That… was odd… but the dealer smiled at them, told them that was good, and stamped their papers. They scampered off and I stepped up and explained why I was there. He said he was happy to stamp my paper, but first he wondered: had I ever seen the legendary Galapagos Tortoise, and heard its beautiful song? It was reputed to sound a bit like whale song. Did I know the Song of the Galapagos Tortoise?

Ah! I thought — that explains why the girls were behaving so oddly! I was having fun, so I brightly replied to the man that alas, I’d never visited the Galapagos Islands… but thanks to the wonders of the internet and youtube, of course I’d heard the beautiful Song of the Tortoise! Why, it was so lovely… words failed me! Would he like to hear me sing it?

By this point my almost alarming perkiness had both the man and his wife, seated behind him, eyeing me with wary amusement. Su-uu-ure, the man said, he’d love to hear it! I took a deep breath, straightened and put my right hand reverently over my heart — then belted out powerfully:

“Hello, my baby!
Hello, my honey!
Hello, my ragtime ga-aa-al!”

The two folks at the booth nearly fell out of their chairs laughing! As he stamped my paper, still chuckling, the man said it was a pity he couldn’t stamp twice! I was very pleased they’d enjoyed themselves.

As my sweetie and I walked away, he grinned and murmured that I’d gotten to be quite the smartass! To which I smugly replied that I’d learned from the best — him! Curiously, he seemed pleased. ;-)