Meaningless and Maladroit Manis Memoirs Chapter 61: A Very Silly Rustle

“Do you think they’re nearly finished?” Lois whispered to Leona, who was also trying her hardest to look her most beautiful for the mob of flashing cameras. Leona was a true professional and ignored Lois completely. She turned her head gracefully away from Lois, giving the paparazzi a new angle. Lois, Leona and Lisa were bonafide celebrities. In fact, they were the reason why a migrating primate species called a ‘fertogafer’ came to this part of Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park.

Fertogafers took countless pictures of the three girls. They simply couldn't get enough of them. Their images adorned bedroom walls and living room mantels far beyond the park boundaries and all over the world, and the girls knew it. They knew it because more and more fertogafers kept coming, sent north to this remote corner of the world by others who had come before them. They all came with the hope of photographing these three very beautiful girls. The girls didn't like to make it challenging, preferring to spend their days inconspicuously basking by the heavily used roadside. They liked to make sure the background was just right for the ultimate photo, and were known to move objects like rocks and fill Ground Squirrel holes with flowers to ensure the perfect backdrop- one that would enhance their features. Lois, Leona and Lisa absolutely thrived on their celebrity status and the fertogafers were more than happy to fawn over them. In nature, this is called a mutual relationship.

It's fair to say that the ladies greatly enjoyed their day job. It wasn’t hard being a fabulous celebrity. But their admirers rarely understood that the girls had other responsibilities. Fertogafers too easily forgot that this was 'the wild'. Beneath the fame and the sparkly white teeth they loved to show off (‘oops, is that a big, wide Y--A--W--N coming on?'), they had a responsibility to provide for Larry.

Being a great bodyguard, a prolific polygamist and reasonably good father didn’t make Larry any less lazy. Hunting and providing was a woman’s work. He intensely valued his ‘me time’, which he devoted to sun-bathing, keeping his long mane extra ‘swishy’ and maintaining beautifully manicured claws. As long as something tasty and dead came home with the girls, he didn’t mind what they spent the rest of their day doing.

The last vehicle carrying fertogafers disappeared in a cloud of dust. ‘Hunt?’, inquired Lisa. ‘Yes, let’s’, replied Leona. As they turned to walk home, they heard a rustle from the bush that they had strategically chosen to pose beside because of its 'authentic-looking' thorns. Never one to not investigate, Lois was the first to poke her muzzle in. There was indeed something under the bush! She gingerly pawed at it with her ginger paw, and much to everyone’s surprise, it rolled out from the bush and settled neatly at their feet.