An anecdote about rhinoceroses

I remembered something today, I don't know why exactly. A conversation I had more than two years ago with my then colleagues at the last school I worked in. I am not very nostalgic from that era, although I did enjoy the people there. I never felt I was very important, for the administration I was little more than nothing, but with the teachers and teaching assistants I did feel part of the team. They treated me well. And because of this I was more sociable with them than I was with the people working at the previous school. So I talked more. This is an anecdote about one of those conversations.

It was near the end of my contract, at lunchtime. For some reasons, somebody mentioned rhinos. One of the history teachers, an Irishman, said that the name black rhinoceros and white rhinoceros had nothing to do with their colour. And he kept talking about rhinoceros, telling us that he had learned a lot about these animals, for some reason. I mentioned Ionesco's play Rhinoceros, in which I once performed the role of Jean, who turns in the middle act into a rhino on stage. I mentioned it on the blog here. It was a troubled production, but I was very proud of my performance, so I do mention it from time to time. My rhino obsessed colleague knew about the play, he had an actor friend who even had sent it a copy of one its performances in English. I thought it was strange, I read little about rhinos for the play and this guy's only interest in a classic French absurd play was that it featured his favourite animal. So this was the anecdote. I kind of miss the lunch time conversations there.