Valdez Strikes Again

Ladies and Gentleman, I give you the largest animal on the planet.

There are few words with a worse connotation to them than “Valdez”. This happened the moment Joseph Hazelwood, the ship captain of the Exxon Valdez decided to treat the oil tanker like a floating happy hour on Mad Men. And this, of course, led to the death of thousands of animals and the destruction of an ecosystem. I don’t know how the word Valdez didn’t come into our daily usage more, like:

“Yeah, this girl last night was so hot, we went back to her place, but five seconds into it, I Valdezed all over her back. It was awful.”

“I got shitfaced last night. I thought it was cool, but I Valdezed all over myself. At least I didn’t prematurely ejaculate on a girl’s back like last night, though.”

Or in Phil Spector’s case: “Uh Oh, I think I just Valdezed that girl. And by ‘Valdezed,’ I mean murdered.” 

So it probably took the good people of Valdez, Alaska to beat that stigma. And as soon as they do, they get a giant, dead humpback whale driven into port on the bow of a ship. Couple thoughts here:

1. There is no way you, as a ship’s captain would be unaware of hitting a 50 foot beast. I have hit a squirrel and known it immediately. You hit Moby Dick, literally the largest animal on the planet.

2. Once you know you have hit an endangered whale, stop and ditch the evidence. Because if you think no one will notice, that’s what R. Kelly thought when he made that tape. You were both wrong.