I had hoped to put off talking about the title of this blog for as long as possible, but it seems I’ve written myself into a corner and provided the perfect segue with the previous entry. And so, against my better judgment, it’s time to talk about what I fully believe is the singular best idea of my life.

In 2005, I saw a nature documentary movie called March of the Penguins with my then-future-wife, Jen. The movie documents the true story of the Antarctic Emperor penguins that need to complete an arduous journey each year in order to breed. While the natural habitat of these penguins is the ocean, the logistics of breeding necessitate that the breeding ground be a specific spot that is solid ice year-round and able to support the weight of the colony. Unfortunately, by the end of the winter in Antarctica, this spot is over 60 miles from the nearest open water.

In order to facilitate the survival of a baby penguin chick, the monogamous (monogamy is the best policy!) penguin parents need to work cooperatively, with one parent walking extreme distances to bring back food while the other keeps the penguin egg (and eventually chick) warm and safe from the intense cold. Even when a chick is successfully born, the penguins still have to survive against hardships such as fierce winter storms and dangerous predators, and the movie documents the deaths of many adult and baby penguins.

I don’t like March of the Penguins!

I like to think that I’m generally a pretty mild-mannered person, but it makes me immensely angry that humans went all the way to Antarctica for months and months to film all the footage for this documentary–and then stood by and watched and did nothing while a multitude of these penguins suffered and died. To me, and taken in light of my previously-stated ideal of “The Hero That Saves Everyone”,  this is unconscionable–if you can save someone that can’t save themself, then you should.

And so! I proposed to Jen the aforementioned greatest idea of my life: The Penguin Dome.

Wherein: Rather than leaving these penguins to their own accord and allowing for uncountable numbers of them to die in the future, instead humans build a humongous dome and create an ideal habitat for the Penguins to safely breed in–a Penguin Dome–with all of the food, resources and medical care necessary to make the Penguins secure and happy. A place to insulate them from the world outside and make sure that they’re safe and can survive without getting extinguished by the reality of the world.

Why should the emperor penguins have to travel 100 kilometers or more to the water to look for fish and potentially get eaten by seals or freeze to death, when humans can just provide them with food?

Why should the penguins have to stand out in extreme temperatures of almost -80 degrees Fahrenheit to keep their eggs warm when we can temperature-control everything so that every egg and penguin survives?

If humans can heal injuries and diseases that used to be fatal; can travel into outer space; can send probes out to explore planets across the galaxy–then why can’t we do something simple like saving the lives of other creatures that aren’t as advanced as us?

Jen. Did not like this idea for reasons I cannot comprehend. I swear that I have tried, but it is beyond my capabilities to comprehend why something like this–maybe not exactly the same, but similar–would be “wrong”. This film continues to haunt me, so I have re-proposed The Penguin Dome again and again–sometimes with slight tweaks, sometimes without–for the last 15+ years.

I propose similar things often. For example, we have a surprisingly robust population of rabbits living outside in our neighborhood right now. I did some research and discovered that outdoor rabbits only live 1/10th as long as indoor rabbits because it’s a dangerous world outside and wild rabbits are heavily predated.  I wanted to lure the rabbits into our house so that we could keep them safe.

I’m pretty sure that the rabbits would be much happier inside with us in an air-conditioned environment and with infinite food and total safety, even if they needed to be tricked into coming into the house to be shown that. But Jen refuses and says I am trying to “Penguin Dome” them.

Is that really such a bad thing? I wonder.