The Impulsive Elephant by Adam Acidophilus

"That's enough!" said the elephant, rising impatiently from his seat. "I'll bloody walk!" And he marched off to the office unchallenged.

He arrived at work. "You're late," said his boss.

"And you are understaffed," said the elephant – clearing his desk, shredding his calendar, and sucking the water cooler dry. "I quit!" he said. "There, I said it!" he added. "I said I quit and I'm quitting!" And he left immediately. Nobody tried to stop him.

"You did what?" asked the elephant's wife, when he joined her on the sofa minutes later – hoping to watch some daytime telly at last. "What about our mortgage? What about our plans? What about me? Don't you care?"

And she burst into tears – which her husband found rather annoying.

"And you can stuff this marriage as well!" he snapped, flapping his ears angrily. "I'm dropping out! Keep the house. I never liked you."

"You bastard!" she screamed, as he stormed out of the house with nothing but his credit cards and tusk-brush. "You heartless bastard!" she repeated. "I never should have married an elephant!"

The elephant hitched a ride to the coast, and told the farmer who picked him up that he was going to start a magazine, or a club, or a band, or do a course in website design, or nothing – he hadn't decided yet.

"I admire your nerve," the farmer chortled. "Throwing away your career, and your marriage, and your home, and that lovely big car. I couldn't do it!"

"Ah, well – " laughed the elephant, who was genial once he'd calmed down – "an elephant never regrets."

"Oh," said the farmer. "I see . . . Only, I thought the expression was 'an elephant never forgets'."

"Really?" said the elephant. "Oh shit."