Time of the Tea Entry

It's time for Celestial Seasonings' 15 minutes of fame, everyone!

I remember buying this box of tea. I remember buying it because I thought the cover was pretty weird, and also because I wasn't wearing glasses so I had to hold it about 2 inches away from my face to see what flavor I was buying. 1.5 months ago was also about the last time my body was not composed solely of veggie burgers, and the last time I seriously considered not wasting time, but moving on...

Without further ado, I present to you: Celestial Seasonings' Madagascar Vanilla Red Rooibos Tea











Sorry. It's flipped, but it doesn't deter from the message. I'll just clarify it for you anyway though: There is a lion sitting on a wicker chair with a cup of what is presumably the Rooibos tea, enjoying the afternoon sunlight while waiting for Simba and Nala to come visit him later.

I did some extensive research this morning, and discovered that in fact Madagascar does not have any lions natively living on the island. Madagascar has lots of other weird species, since it was relatively isolated when all those things were developing (like the Galapagos Islands...remember something about evolution?). So for a while, I was stumped about the presence of the lion.

And just in case the drinker has any doubt that it is indeed a lion sitting on the cover, there is a glorious enlargement in full color on the other side of it:











Anyway, here are 2 different versions of stories I can get from the picture.

VERSION 1:
Exerting superhuman powers to ignore the fact that lions don't in fact live in Madagascar, and that it has tropical rainforests, where there is CLEARLY a savannah or whosits pictured here, I think this lion is sitting resting after having a long day roaming the brush. Now he's having a cup of tea to work up an appetite to go chase after the zebras, even though lions don't hunt alone, since they are social cats and hunt with a buddy. So this is why he's waiting for Simba and Nala; he'll take them hunting the zebra, and while he's chewing away at their necks, Simba and Nala can gnaw on the zebras' tails or something.

It's also possible he's having a cup of tea after eating the baby elephants of the family of elephants in the background. So his tea is actually red because he's just washing away the blood that was until recently covering his entire face. That's why he has such a satisfied smile on his face.

VERSION 2:
That is not a lion at all, but a poacher wearing the mask of a lion. *Think: Little Red Riding Hood moves to the wide and open of Africa.* Since lions aren't native to Madagascar, all those endangered and weird species living in Madagascar right now are going to go over to the lion because they're going to be thinking "What in Sam Hill is that? An indri monkey with Down's Syndrome? A drugged Crested Drongo?" In a few seconds, once he has leisurely taken one more sip of tea, he will yank off his mask and shoot all of the animals around him.

All this speculation has naturally led me to one point: Why is the lion drinking tea in the first place?

Drink Celestial Seasonings. It's guaranTEAd (ah-HA!) to make your day.

Glory be to the end of school. Now just finals to get through.