This Friday, April 17 & Saturday April 18, 2009, at the Will Rogers Memorial Center in Ft. Worth, Texas, you can buy your very own stuffed hippo. I’m not talking some cute little stuffed animal that you can prop on the pillow beside you in bed. No, I’m talkin’ bout a real hippo head mounted on your very own wall in your very own house. That’s right, one of the items up for auction at the World Class Big Game Trophy Mount & Western Auction is a taxidermy marvel: a mounted hippopotamus.

John Brommel, organizer of the sale at the Will Rogers Memorial Center in Fort Worth, said the hippo is one of 700 taxidermy mounts to be auctioned at the yearly sale. “It’s huge — one monstrosity of a piece,” Brommel said of the hippopotamus. “It probably weighs 700 pounds.”

The items come from the estates of several big-game hunters and the collections of two natural history museums and include a pair of 6-foot elephant tusks, a polar bear, grizzly bears, black bears, and a 15 1/2 foot marlin. Hundreds of small game animals are also available, such as badger, coyote, Arctic fox, cougar, beaver, and raccoon.

Now, is it just me or is it a little creepy to shoot animals for fun and then hang their stuffed bodies up on the wall? I’m not a rabid environmentalist or anything (well, I’m pretty sure I’m not rabid), but really. Ick. You wouldn’t do that to your grandmother, would you? Then why do it to an animal?

I can understand harvesting tusks from an animal that’s already dead, but let’s not go shooting things that we aren’t going to eat, especially hippos. And another point. How is it sporting to SHOOT A HIPPO? It’s not like they run away!!! They just float there in the water. It’s literally like shooting fish in a barrel. Not really something to brag about to your friends back home. “Dude, I shot a hippo out of a crowd of 30 of them. I snuck up on it in my Jeep and then got it, BAM, right between the eyes.”

I think it should be a law that if you want a stuffed and mounted hippo, you should have to kill it with your bare hands. Now THAT would be something to brag about.

You can find out more at NYmag.com, at Who Ate the Big Apple? or by calling the restaurant at 212-228-0994. If you are a New Yorker and have been to this restaurant, we’d love to hear from you!

A hippo sandwich is easy to make.
All you do is simply take
One slice of bread,
One slice of cake,
Some mayonnaise,
One onion ring,
One hippopotamus,
One piece of string,
A dash of pepper–
That ought to do it, And now comes the problem… Biting into it!

Well, duh!!!! Cut up the hippo into steaks, silly! Okay, please don’t email me about how it’s really mean to eat hippos – I’m just kidding here, folks!

Anyway, if you’ve always secretly wanted to own a sandwich shop and are ready to let your inner entrepreneur free, and don’t mind living in Sacramento, why not check out the Happy Hippo? The shop is approximately 866 square feet in a space that rents for $1,948.50 per month with a 3% annual increase (that seems a little steep to me, but what do I know!) The lease expires October 31, 2016. The shop is located near a bunch of medical offices – hey, doctors need to eat, too! The current owners will provide 7 days of free training. Although one would think you’d already know how to make sandwiches if you are buying a sandwich shop. Anyway, how hard is it to make a sandwich? Even I can do it! Included in the $79,000 sale price is all the decor, inventory, and equipment. If this is the business for you, please call Frank at 916-770-0409.

Now, I’m off to make some sandwiches – river horse cold cuts, anyone?

Hutto is planning to erect the largest hippo in the world, some 20 feet high, thus cementing their claim to fame as the hippo town. Learn more about Hutto’s hippos.

Hippo House website

I love the website design and it looks like a great place to stop by for sandwiches and drinks. I just wish they had put their city on the website so we know where to find them! Well, if any of you are ever in England, look it up and pay them a visit!