Subscribers can listen to the audio version of today’s post here.
You don’t want a hippopotamus, for Christmas or otherwise, cuz the fuckers will kill you. Precise data is sketchy, but it’s certainly one of the more lethal mammals, which is why they make for terrible pets. South African farmer Marius Els refused to believe it, adopting a baby hippo and naming him Humphrey. Guess what happened next. Go ahead, guess.
--On This Day in History, Shit Went Down: November 12, 2011--
Hippos prefer mostly plants but are omnivorous and will eat a motherfucker. Found in the southern two-thirds of the African continent as well as along the length of the Nile River, the typical male will grow to weigh over 3,000 pounds. Even giant fucking crocodiles are smart enough to keep their distance from hippos, but not Marius Els.
In 2005, Els, a former army major, adopted the five-month-old male hippo from some people who said yeah he’s getting too fucking big to handle. Marius loved the not-so-little guy, even though such love was obviously unrequited. Humphrey the hippo was “like a son” to Els, he said. Yeah, what about that time a man and his actual human son, who were paddling their canoe down the river near Els’s farm, spent two hours hiding in a tree because sweet Humphrey went on a goddamn rampage? Continues below …
Know what I want for Christmas? For you to become a paying subscriber. Or buy my fucking book. Or both. Insert “Why not both?” meme here. Click the green button. And this link. Click both.
That wasn’t the only sign that Humphrey was a dangerous wild animal and not a tame pet. Over the six years that Els let the hippo roam his 400-acre farm, Humphrey often proved a menace. He killed cattle and regularly broke out of his enclosure to chase golfers off the nearby course. Considering that a hippo can run 30 goddamn miles an hour, that must have been fucking terrifying. You’re just trying to get in a round of whack-fuck and some 3,000-pound nightmare semiaquatic ungulate with incisors the size of your fucking forearm comes galloping toward you as fast as a German Shepherd can run. I was putting for birdie, goddammit!
Humphrey may have let Marius ride him sometimes, but his luck ran out on November 12, 2011. The totally not-a-pet hippo mauled the shit out of 40-year-old Els, holding him underwater until he drowned. The hippo also bit him several times, but reports that Humphrey “ate” Els were exaggerated. Nevertheless, Els’s injuries were described as “horrific.”
Els once said of Humphrey, “I trust him with my heart.” That trust was obviously misplaced.
Support keeping this daily column free and get access to subscriber only content:
Get the book On This Day in History Sh!t Went Down.
I was hit on the leg by a young hippo (named Foggy, now thankfully deceased) at a local zoo in 1973. Was tired so leaned up against the open bar enclosure (I was 5, didn't think that through) and looked over to see a huge open mouth and a massive incisor hit me square in the thigh and knocked me to the other side of the corridor. The elephants were there and all they did was blink at me, not try and eat me.