The Boy’s school is all about project-based learning, and this year, they did a big project on whales. Each kid picked a whale (The Boy chose the sperm whale, which had me doing my best to hold in the giggles, because I am actually a 12 year old boy inside) and they wrote reports about them, and they went on a whale-watching field trip, and in art class, they made paper mache whales. Now, even though The Boy’s whale was the sperm whale (snort), somehow we ended up bringing home a 4-foot-long narwhal at the end of the year, the narwhal being perhaps the only whale that makes me snicker even more than the sperm whale.

This is what the narwhal’s fin looked like when it came to our house:  

I’m not sure how it was injured, but when The Hubs first told me about the narwhal, he said, “How would you feel about us bringing home a huge paper mache narwhal with a broken fin?” And I was like “A what?” And then there was our poor injured narwhal friend, riding around in the minivan. Luckily, my oncologist and his wife (also a doctor) came over to hang out, so we had two highly skilled medical professionals available to repair him with packing tape. The Boy served as the anasthesiologist and The Girl served as the nurse. She’s good with a blood pressure cuff. I’m pleased to say that the procedure was a complete success.

Isn’t it beautiful?

  
For several days after the end of school, the narwhal rode around in our minivan with The Hubs. Because, I guess the narwhal likes going on outings? I mean, who doesn’t, really? For example, when I went in for a blood transfusion, I took a selfie in the car, and you can actually see its golden horn in the background. YES, THE NARWHAL PHOTOBOMBED ME.
  

Still, it’s not awesome to have to live in a car, so I brought the narwhal into the house while cleaning out the minivan, and now we’re trying to figure out where to put it. I was worried that my friend Natasha, who’s been helping with decluttering my house (do you live in the Seattle area? You should hire her, she’s ridiculously good at this) will not be pleased to see that we’ve taken in a 4-foot narwhal…except, she’s awesome, so no, she thought it was fucking AMAZING that we have a narwhal living in our house now. In fact, I bet by the time you read this, she’ll have helped me hang it from the bathroom ceiling or mount it over the fireplace or wherever it ends up.

Although the narwhal is clearly happy in its new forever home, there is one more thing the narwhal needs: a name. And now I turn to you, dear readers. I’m too cheap and too lazy to run a genuine contest here on the blog (still haven’t monetized this bad boy, I’m clearly doing blogging all wrong), but whoever comments below with the best name for the narwhal will get a shout out from me all over Twitter and Facebook, and the knowledge that you’ve done a great service to a majestic sea mammal. 

In conclusion, I leave you with a classic of the internet to help inspire you as you ponder what the narwhal should be called.

http://youtu.be/VhujEQhg764