The Giraffes Fly First Class!

The Giraffes Fly First Class!

The Giraffes Fly First Class!

The Giraffes Fly First Class!

A client wished to send a set of wooden giraffes from South Africa to Australia.

Somewhat like the three bears, the set consisted of a “mother, father and baby” giraffe. As you can imagine, wooden giraffes are long and their legs and necks are extremely fragile. For that reason they needed to be very carefully packed and crated. The ‘giraffe family’ lay in our warehouse waiting to be wrapped, lagged and packed.

As it happened, one of our managers (who then happened to be in the warehouse) received a call on her mobile phone. It was from her vet’s receptionist, who was reporting on the progress of one of the manager’s pets. Simultaneously, while she was responding to the vet assistant’s report a background conversation between some Aerospeed staff occurred, which was also audible to the vet’s receptionist: “What time are the giraffes being packed and freighted?”

Oblivious to the fact that the question had not been addressed to her, the vet’s assistant replied in surprise, mixed with horror. “You have giraffes in the warehouse?”

“Yes” replied the Aerospeed manager innocently, “they are lying down and will shortly be moved to the crating department!”

“Have you got the correct permits to keep wild-life in your warehouse – do you have sufficient fodder and water for them? Has a vet examined them and are they under correct veterinary supervision,” said the receptionist.

At this point, our manager realized what had happened and started to laugh! Not yet a party to the joke, the vet’s receptionist repeated her questions, on this occasion with some irritation. At which point, our manager explained that the giraffes were wooden statues and not alive. The conversation ended on a happy note with much hilarity.

Needless to say, the giraffe family were safely air-freighted and arrived safely at their destination in Australia, in excellent condition and no worse for their experience.