Slender Walking

I'm going to institute a new feature here at Penguin Perspectives. Given the reaction to the series on getting rid of Chase's telemarketers, I've decided to post similar tips every week. I'm going to shoot for Wednesdays for Slender Walk Tip of the Week.

Why Slender Walk? Slender walking is a penguin behavior used when a penguin walks through a colony to his or her nest site or wherever he or she happens to be headed in the interior of the penguin mass. Penguins are, in spite of popular perceptions, rather territorial creatures, and will defend their nest sites from other penguins that look like they're encroaching. Given how tightly packed the colonies can get, this makes getting from Point A (say, the water and food source) to Point B (say, the animal's own nest site) somewhat interesting. The slender walk posture--as skinny as possible, beak pointed up, and flippers held close--makes the penguin as non-threatening as possible to its colonymates as it walks by others.

In much the same way that a penguin wants to get on with its life without attracting attention from the others in the rookery who might attack it, most of us want to be able to go through our lives without being bothered too much by marketers. Hence we, like the penguin, have to learn how to slender walk through our commercial lives, trying not to do anything to be perceived as a target. Slender Walk Tips of the Week aim to show how to do that.