Why the name Raised By Elephants.
Now, the name of this blog might come off as a little strange. Seeing as I’ve never seen an elephant up close nor are my parents particularly overweight. So, understandably, you’re probably wondering where the name came from. After 2-3 days of brainstorming this was one of the many random names I put on the list to call the blog. Slowly edging ‘Fun flew over the cuckoo’s nest.’ Hopefully it will encourage me to go see some actual elephants too, seeing as I probably need a logo for the blog. But one step at a time.
As a 15 year old in school, I would say my friends are I were always pretty chilled out. We all came from different groups and just started hanging out with each other one day. Definitely an unusual group of teenagers but somehow suited each other pretty well. My lunchtimes went from football everyday to just hanging out near a bench, watching the drama of a secondary school day unfold. Our group got bigger and bigger but the topics of conversation stayed the same. It was usually about what we did the day before or something funny that happened during a lesson, or even the occasional rant about something annoying one of our mates kept doing.
One day during our GCSE’s while everyone was busy stressing out, I had come to school in my normal relaxed mood. I ease dropped over two members in my form talking about how much they did yesterday and getting visibly annoyed at how little they did. I thought I’ll try and change the conversation before one of them decides it is time to enrol in the army, not that either of these guys could complete a course that involves such physicality. So in my attempt to change the conversation I witnessed probably the best and the most childish, spat to this day.
Terry was taller than me, but the thing I remember most about Terry is the fact that he was the most arrogant person I’ve ever met, and bad at EVERYTHING. Terry would be in the changing rooms before PE and say “I’m the best at Hockey, I’ve played for years, nobody is better than me at Hockey.” This would be followed by a shocking hockey performance from him during the PE lesson, but it wouldn’t stop him from being arrogant, he would just turn to us and say something like “no, but Fifa? I’m the best at Fifa! Nobody beats me at Fifa!” And the cycle will continue with various activities.
The best memory I have of Terry is when we had our first ever GCSE mock exam in Chemistry. Terry came into my form class and threw a stapled, hand-made, badly written, paper booklet on the table and exclaimed “IF YOU READ THIS, YOU WILL GET AN A!” I’ve never seen such confidence, I asked what he meant, and again he said “This! If you read this, you will get an A!” This booklet was something else. It was all blank paper, no straight lines, the badly written sentences were diagonally written across the page, the occasional letter in each word raised or lowered compared to the other letters and then for no benefit at all, some words were even written in half cursive before going back to block non-capitals. I decided not to read the booklet, and we headed to our test.
It was a difficult test with everyone’s moral at an all-time low, except Terry who was 100% certain he did well. A few weeks later we got our test results and I went straight to king-confidence and asked him what he got. “I got a D.” I couldn’t laugh, I was in shock, there was no way he was going to say a confident response after getting a D. “What about that booklet? I thought if you read that you would have gotten an A?” His reply is the single dumbest thing I’ve ever heard, “yeah, I wrote it, I didn’t READ it.”
Hanny was the opposite, short, stocky, equally as bad at physical activity but was a good sport about it. When we joined the school together, we were good mates. Mainly because we made fun of each other and when anyone else tried to make fun of us we’d get defensive. If somebody made fun of Hanny, I would come to his aid and help him make fun of the other guy, and he would do the same for me. When we were younger, this backfired. This bulky middle-eastern kid made fun of Hanny in our woodwork class and I came to help. After the to and fro with the fake-aged kid I realised he had stopped talking as much but I still had a lot more ammunition so I kept going. It culminated into this 12 year old who looked like he was going through a tough divorce and custody battle, telling me he was going to fight me at lunch.
Now, I’m not a fighter, and I was not about to start with the kid who was taller than the teachers but it turns out, he didn’t care. At lunch he approached me and gave me a little push, by which point, Hanny had vanished. I accepted my fate, I was sure it was time for my pounding, so I stood there and continued to make fun of the 45 year old year 7. He pushed me again, but I kept saying things like “careful now, you might get PTSD from the war.” Jokes that were going way over his head. This continued, the kid got angrier and angrier while I stood there frantically saying whatever came to mind. Luckily before I got hit, Hanny came and beat the kid up. Not really. Hanny had run off and got a teacher to save us from the beating we were about to get. He continues to tell this story as the day he saved my life. Twerp.
So back to the name. I decided to take it upon myself to help these two mates of mine change the conversation and feel a bit better about themselves. I thought I’ll speak to them about the advert I saw on TV the night before, a documentary on channel 4 about a kid who was raised by wolves.
Me; “Hey guys, did you see that TV advert about the boy who was raised by wolves?”
Terry; “No…?”
Me; “Yeah, well, apparently the boy acts like a wolf now.”
Terry; “Oh really? Hanny was probably raised by elephants.”
Terry and I chuckled, I look at Hanny who looked a little shocked as it came out of nowhere. And then came the single greatest comeback not only from Hanny but the greatest comeback I’ve ever heard.
Hanny; “Yeah? Well your mum did a pretty good job.”
And that was me done. The greatest your mum joke i’ve ever heard. It was so good, I decided to honour it as my blog title. As I don’t have a picture with an elephant or seen an elephant, below is what Hanny and Terry, indirectly and directly, called each others mums.
Now, the name of this blog might come off as a little strange. Seeing as I’ve never seen an elephant up close nor are my parents particularly overweight. So, understandably, you’re probably wondering where the name came from. After 2-3 days of brainstorming this was one of the many random names I put on the list to call the blog. Slowly edging ‘Fun flew over the cuckoo’s nest.’ Hopefully it will encourage me to go see some actual elephants too, seeing as I probably need a logo for the blog. But one step at a time.
As a 15 year old in school, I would say my friends are I were always pretty chilled out. We all came from different groups and just started hanging out with each other one day. Definitely an unusual group of teenagers but somehow suited each other pretty well. My lunchtimes went from football everyday to just hanging out near a bench, watching the drama of a secondary school day unfold. Our group got bigger and bigger but the topics of conversation stayed the same. It was usually about what we did the day before or something funny that happened during a lesson, or even the occasional rant about something annoying one of our mates kept doing.
One day during our GCSE’s while everyone was busy stressing out, I had come to school in my normal relaxed mood. I ease dropped over two members in my form talking about how much they did yesterday and getting visibly annoyed at how little they did. I thought I’ll try and change the conversation before one of them decides it is time to enrol in the army, not that either of these guys could complete a course that involves such physicality. So in my attempt to change the conversation I witnessed probably the best and the most childish, spat to this day.
Terry was taller than me, but the thing I remember most about Terry is the fact that he was the most arrogant person I’ve ever met, and bad at EVERYTHING. Terry would be in the changing rooms before PE and say “I’m the best at Hockey, I’ve played for years, nobody is better than me at Hockey.” This would be followed by a shocking hockey performance from him during the PE lesson, but it wouldn’t stop him from being arrogant, he would just turn to us and say something like “no, but Fifa? I’m the best at Fifa! Nobody beats me at Fifa!” And the cycle will continue with various activities.
The best memory I have of Terry is when we had our first ever GCSE mock exam in Chemistry. Terry came into my form class and threw a stapled, hand-made, badly written, paper booklet on the table and exclaimed “IF YOU READ THIS, YOU WILL GET AN A!” I’ve never seen such confidence, I asked what he meant, and again he said “This! If you read this, you will get an A!” This booklet was something else. It was all blank paper, no straight lines, the badly written sentences were diagonally written across the page, the occasional letter in each word raised or lowered compared to the other letters and then for no benefit at all, some words were even written in half cursive before going back to block non-capitals. I decided not to read the booklet, and we headed to our test.
It was a difficult test with everyone’s moral at an all-time low, except Terry who was 100% certain he did well. A few weeks later we got our test results and I went straight to king-confidence and asked him what he got. “I got a D.” I couldn’t laugh, I was in shock, there was no way he was going to say a confident response after getting a D. “What about that booklet? I thought if you read that you would have gotten an A?” His reply is the single dumbest thing I’ve ever heard, “yeah, I wrote it, I didn’t READ it.”
Hanny was the opposite, short, stocky, equally as bad at physical activity but was a good sport about it. When we joined the school together, we were good mates. Mainly because we made fun of each other and when anyone else tried to make fun of us we’d get defensive. If somebody made fun of Hanny, I would come to his aid and help him make fun of the other guy, and he would do the same for me. When we were younger, this backfired. This bulky middle-eastern kid made fun of Hanny in our woodwork class and I came to help. After the to and fro with the fake-aged kid I realised he had stopped talking as much but I still had a lot more ammunition so I kept going. It culminated into this 12 year old who looked like he was going through a tough divorce and custody battle, telling me he was going to fight me at lunch.
Now, I’m not a fighter, and I was not about to start with the kid who was taller than the teachers but it turns out, he didn’t care. At lunch he approached me and gave me a little push, by which point, Hanny had vanished. I accepted my fate, I was sure it was time for my pounding, so I stood there and continued to make fun of the 45 year old year 7. He pushed me again, but I kept saying things like “careful now, you might get PTSD from the war.” Jokes that were going way over his head. This continued, the kid got angrier and angrier while I stood there frantically saying whatever came to mind. Luckily before I got hit, Hanny came and beat the kid up. Not really. Hanny had run off and got a teacher to save us from the beating we were about to get. He continues to tell this story as the day he saved my life. Twerp.
So back to the name. I decided to take it upon myself to help these two mates of mine change the conversation and feel a bit better about themselves. I thought I’ll speak to them about the advert I saw on TV the night before, a documentary on channel 4 about a kid who was raised by wolves.
Me; “Hey guys, did you see that TV advert about the boy who was raised by wolves?”
Terry; “No…?”
Me; “Yeah, well, apparently the boy acts like a wolf now.”
Terry; “Oh really? Hanny was probably raised by elephants.”
Terry and I chuckled, I look at Hanny who looked a little shocked as it came out of nowhere. And then came the single greatest comeback not only from Hanny but the greatest comeback I’ve ever heard.
Hanny; “Yeah? Well your mum did a pretty good job.”
And that was me done. The greatest your mum joke i’ve ever heard. It was so good, I decided to honour it as my blog title. As I don’t have a picture with an elephant or seen an elephant, below is what Hanny and Terry, indirectly and directly, called each others mums.
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