I got fucked by a penguin today.

I wish the Podfathers still existed for days like today...

My 13-year-old daughter came to my wife and me about 2 weeks ago asking for $26 to adopt a penguin. 

I immediately said, "Yes", while my wife asked the only salient question, "When you say 'adopt,' you don't mean you will actually be bringing this thing home, correct?"

And my kid scoffed while explaining it was a "virtual adoption" where for the low low cost of $26, she would be given a wristband with a code that could be used online to track a penguin that was tagged by some conservationist society on the Antarctic coast.  All her friends were doing it, and the proceeds from the adoption would benefit something… blah… blah… blah.

I said to my angel, "Stop talking… Here's the credit card… Go away."

Nearly two weeks later, we received a small package at our door addressed to my daughter.  In it, was a small stuffed penguin, the aforementioned coded bracelet, and a postcard introducing us to our new penguin, 'Lilla'.

My daughter rushed to the computer, registered her bracelet, and began to track Lilla's whereabouts, but was immediately told that Lilla was no longer with us… Apparently, Lilla was brutally murdered AFTER she was assigned to my daughter, but just days BEFORE we received the adoption package in the mail.

I wasn't sure whether the whole thing was either a joke or some type of scam, but my daughter was obviously disappointed to find her pen-pet was no longer with us.  I tried to convince her that Lilla died comfortably in her sleep, but we both knew she was either ripped to shreds in the teeth of a killer whale or snapped her neck unsuccessfully trying to ascend onto an ice floe.

In an effort to make us whole, the conservationists offered my kid another animal to adopt… Free of charge, of course.  However, they were all out of penguins… Perhaps there has been a recent penguin holocaust I am not aware of?… So they offered her up an adorable sea lion named "Shoola" for virtual adoption in Lilla's place.

Since my daughter's friends all have access to living penguins around their wrists, we decided to pass on adopting the sea lion because it's just not the same.  I also asked for our money back, because virtual or not, they essentially sent us a dead pet.  They urged me to keep my donation with their organization but I urged back the fact I have no need to donate to birds halfway around the world when there are birds within our own unsecured borders that need access to housing and decent healthcare.

So the 26 bucks has been sent back to my account and my daughter still wears the bracelet to school, never telling her friends that her penguin has been reduced to chunks of whale shit at the bottom of the ocean.

RIP Lilla… You're whale-cum.

Take a report.

-Large