Panda's Problem

Panda climbed the little wooden steps leading up to the stage, placed his notes on the podium and taking his glasses out of his pocket, looked out upon the audience.
It was clear that the crowd were delighted to have the opportunity to hear one of China's most esteemed scholars in person, a bear generally aknowledged to be the world's foremost authority on bamboo. Public speaking still made him very nervous and he could feel the sweat gathering in the fur of his paws. This was the third and final talk in a series of lectures entitled "Bamboo: Where do we go from here?", and as far as he was concerned it was his best.

He cleared his throat with a little growl and launched himself into his speech. It went pretty well too, with his little puns and witty asides getting plenty of laughter and applause, while his theories on bamboo poetry were met with profound expressions and noddding brows. And it would have been plain sailing all the way to the end, if he hadn't been distracted by something in the audience. It began about two thirds of the way through, and he was soon finding it hard to concentrate on what he was doing.

About two rows from the back, a couple of girafffes were locked in a passionate embrace. They weren't paying the slightest bit of attention to him or his talk. Giraffes can be inappropriate at the best of times, but it struck a nerve. Of course he managed to get through it, and the crowd gave him a standing ovation at the end, but as he plodded along the corridor of the university that night, chewing slowly on a strip of bamboo, all he could think about was those two long-necked lovers who had all but ignored him.

What a lonely thing it is to be a panda he thought. He hadn't even seen a female Panda for over a year, and he had been doing his best to forget that embarrassing encounter ever since. Feeling in need of a bit of cheering up, he decided to pay a visit to his friend and took the lift down to the Marine Psychology department to find Dolphin.