Regular visitors know that I spend a good deal of pudu-related space spewing purest balderdash about the habits of small creatures. This week’s absurdity is actually real.

Last week I posted this note about participating in the European Quizzing Championships, which included some of the most lunatic and delightful questions I’ve ever seen — one of which asked us to name a kind of civet, common in the Balearic Islands, which marks its territory by doing handstands.

I couldn’t answer the question myself.  I was too busy giggling at the mental picture, and at the absurd sight of seeing competitors from fifteen countries nonchalantly nodding and writing down their answers, as if handstanding Balearic civets are in no way unexpected or wondrous.  Can the world truly be this comfortable with its own weirdness?  Apparently so.

Here’s our answer, as it appeared on the tournament’s big projection screen, and in four languages, no less:

The genet, dear readers, is our little self-inverting anus-gland-exposing gymnastic Mediterranean friend.

What am I thankful for in this year’s installment of socially compelled Two Minutes Gratitude? Many, many things. But most of all, to live in a world so strange and magnificent in the first place.

Have a gleeful holiday.  If you’re in the Balearic Islands, please hug a handstanding civet for me.

(And yes, I know genets don’t really like to be hugged.  But millions of Americans are getting hugs they don’t really want today, too.  So think of it as sharing the holiday spirit.)