A Story About a Giraffe
by Tayelor Martin

I wake up at eight in the morning and there is a giraffe growing out of my neck. My first thought is that I should name it Geoffrey, but that seems too easy. A non-alliterative name would be more creative. It’s not full sized or anything, but it’s adding a good foot and a half to my height. It stares at me with big brown eyes, and I blink back at it with my blues. I touch it to make sure I’m actually awake, and sure enough, it’s real. I throw off my covers and get into the bathroom, unsteady at the sudden need to re-learn the art of balancing.

The giraffe is too tall for my mirror, so I bend down so it can have a look at itself. It doesn’t do much. I turn on the sink and start brushing my teeth. I wonder if I need to brush the giraffe’s teeth, so I hold my toothbrush up to its mouth. Stupid giraffe doesn’t seem to understand proper oral hygiene. I try to shove my toothbrush in, but it just stretches out of the way and I can’t reach it anymore. Getting into the shower is a whole other story. Fucking animal doesn’t know how to duck to get in. It slams its neck into the shower bar a few times, and I can’t get the curtain closed. I just rub my pits with some warm tap water in defeat.

After cutting the neck hole of my white work shirt to accommodate the extra neck, I realize that the giraffe has made me late. I sorrowfully skip packing lunch, and head straight for my car.

I open the door and try to get in, but surprise the giraffe can’t fit. I try from a different angle, and shove the giraffe in first. It starts making this weird sheep bah-ing noise and I have to stop my attempt in order to keep the thing from going psycho. I decide that I just have to suck it up and open my sunroof, even though it’s the middle of January. I just hope the giraffe doesn’t catch a cold.

I get to the grocery store, and wouldn’t you know it, the first words out of my boss’s mouth are, “What the heck is on your neck?”

“It’s a fucking giraffe,” I say. He makes a face at ‘fucking’ because he’s a Mormon. 

“Can you still work with a giraffe growing out of your neck?” he asks.

“I think so,” I say. “I’m thinking of naming it Geoffrey, but that sounds too easy.”

“I would name it Daniel,” says my boss.

So I go out into the grocery store with Daniel and start working. Daniel is seriously eyeing up some carrots. Poor guy is probably hungry. I don’t know where Daniel’s stomach would be, I just hope it doesn’t get stuck in his throat. Then I’d have a dead giraffe growing out of my neck. I shrug and give Daniel a carrot. I think he enjoys it.

I’m on my lunch break and the cute cashier with the green eyes comes in and sits next to Daniel and me. Before she can even ask I introduce the two of them. She thinks Daniel is cute and she rubs his stiff yellow hairs. Stupid giraffe is getting more attention then I ever did. Daniel licks her hand with his weird wormy tongue and she giggles. Asshole.

Later on I’m feeding Daniel another carrot and my boss comes out and stands with his hands on his hips. “Those carrots are not for your pet giraffe. They are for customers.”

“Daniel is not my pet. And I can’t help it. He starts to cry if he doesn’t get a carrot every seven minutes,” I say.

“You need to go work in aisle two, where Daniel will not be tempted by carrots.”

I look up at Daniel’s slowly chewing chin and sigh.

I’m stacking cans of lentil soup in aisle two and I figure I should get a step ladder to get them nice and high, but then I remember that I have a giraffe growing out of my neck. I hold a can of soup up to Daniel.

“Daniel, if you cannot put this soup up high so I do not need to get a step stool, then you are useless.”

Daniel uses his weird stubby horns to knock over all the soup cans on the top level instead. It makes a terrible noise. One of the cans lands on my foot and it hurts. My boss comes running.

“I’m sorry, but you just can’t seem to work with your pet giraffe in the store. You have to take it home and come back,” he says.

“But it’s not my pet. It’s growing out of my neck,” I say.

“Whatever. No giraffes.”

I head to the pet store two blocks down the street, and this time I don’t bother to crouch when I go through the door. I laugh when Daniel hits his head on the wall. Stupid giraffe has to learn how to duck sooner or later.
           
I ask the girl at the counter if she has like horse food or hay or something that a giraffe might eat that’s less expensive than carrots.
           
She points me to aisle two.