Schuylkill Dolphin Speaks
May 20, 2008 – Apparently due to a potent mix of pollutants and water-borne pharmaceuticals, a dolphin recently spotted in the Schuylkill River has, incredibly, learned to speak English with impeccable diction. "Before I made my way into that filthy sewer of a river, I communicated through a series of high-pitched whistles," he said yesterday, addressing reporters at a Cape May inlet. "But listen to me now. For heaven's sake, I sound like a character in an Agatha Christie novel."
 The dolphin, 11, said that his May 2 incursion into the Schuylkill was the result of a navigational error. "I'm not exactly sure how I wound up in that tire-filled cesspool–but at some point I, as Bugs Bunny was fond of saying, 'Took a wrong turn at Albuquerque,'" he chuckled. "Once in, however, I was immediately enveloped by an ominous warmth." After eating a few meager, sickly-looking sunfish, the dolphin retraced his steps, and soon found himself back in his Atlantic Ocean home. "The moment I returned, my wife whistled 'hello,'" he remembered, the pain evident on his sleek gray face. "Normally, I'd say the same. But on this fateful day, I responded, 'Darling, the most curious thing has just happened.'"
According to local marine biologist Teresa Bullock, the dolphin's bizarre verbal powers were unsurprising, given the river's contents. "The Schuylkill is brimming with industrial waste, untreated sewage, and pharmaceutical-plant runoff. Its fish are used to it–but as we've now seen, all that gunk can do strange things to visiting creatures." The dolphin agreed. "I am doomed to forever be an outcast amongst my own... no longer able to speak the language of my beloved fellow cetaceans," he said, pausing to sadly clear his blowhole. "You'll pardon my coarseness when I say that this, my friends, is absolute bullshit." |
