Meerkat vs Panasonic

Thursday, 23 September 2010

Lately I've been inundated with email questions from my readers. And strangely, they've all been asking the same thing.. 'Cathy, what would happen if  I dropped some reasonably priced electrical equipment into a meerkat enclosure?'  Well dear readers, because I am the intrepid journalist that I am, today I have the answer. ..

The first thing that happens is that the owner of the camera (in this case me) gets angry with the camera dropper (in this case Jett) because it is exactly the thing that I told him not to do thirty seconds earlier.. (the actual training session may have been a little brief) however this is just for a moment as for journalistic reasons we really need to see what is going on in the enclosure.  The second thing that happens is the meerkats all rush, and I mean stampede, to the site of the exciting new yet slightly threatening addition to their environment.  As a group they then frantically inspect it with their teeth and claws.  Once it's confirmed to not be a threat, they all assist with carrying the bounty off to their burrow.  Once safely ensconsed they take a few photos of their own and then, using the projector that someone dropped a few weeks ago, they hold a wine, cheese and photography evening and award prizes for the most arty shots (collectively voted of course).

Ok - so maybe they don't have a photography evening but they sure do drag the camera off to their burrow in a hurry. In the meantime, although it was fairly clear that the camera had sustained serious damage in the fall, and the subsequent inspection, I went to get a zoo-keeper as I was concerned that they would eat the battery and all die and then the photos would be traced back to us and we'd be forced to compensate the zoo to the value of 30 meerkats and postage from Africa.  While I waited by myself (probably 10 minutes)  I was treated to the comments from a great many zoo goers as they came past, noticed the camera in the burrow and commented on the stupidity of the owners. sigh.

All's well that ends well though, the zoo-keeper came and got my camera without so much as a smirk, it was duly declared broken and I'll get to upgrade to a little Canon number I've had my eye on for a few weeks.