I'm new here, so I thought it would be best if I started by introducing myself. As a giraffe, you probably imagine that means I live in a place that looks somewhat like this:

I don't.

I'm an American, born and raised. My parents grew up on the savannas of Africa, but they were captured and taken to America by slave traders working for a zoo here before I was born. I was born into captivity in the zoo, but I was emancipated by a civil liberties group when I was still young and subsequently adopted.

As much as I love my family, it's always been hard to fit in here. Being adopted brings about its own family issues, I'm sure, but imagine being an African-American giraffe adopted by a typical white family in the Midwest; it's too much to take sometimes.

Sometimes I have trouble keeping up with other people because they take for granted things like fingers, thumbs, and human-shaped mouths. I can relate to StrongBad's struggle in typing with boxing gloves. I hate it when people make fun of me because of how I talk or for some other way I'm different.

I don't belong with other giraffes either, though. I, like the little teapot, am short and stout even for a human, much more so for a giraffe. I don't think I could ever really go live in a giraffes-only community anyway; I'm too accustomed to the luxuries of human civilization, such as the internet.

I just want to belong. Xanga, will you take me in?