I couldn’t believe the sign in the travel agency window, “Hilarity in the Himalayas.” Below it was a picture of a mountain range with blue sky and fluffy clouds. The poster advertised a climbing expedition.
I knew the Himalayas were located between India and Tibet and included Mount Everest, but what was hilarious about that? I’d read about people climbing Mount Everest. That didn’t sound like my idea of fun. The travel agent must have been desperate. Laughing, I turned and walked away.

“I’m going to be hiking in the Himalayas with my tour group,” I told my friend, Janet.

She gave me a puzzled look. “Isn’t that in India?”

I was laughing hysterically. “The part of it we’re hiking,” I replied.

Janet crossed her arms over her chest. ‘Well, then you’re a hypocrite.”

I was laughing even harder. “How is that?”

“Well, you don’t like climbing the hill of your own driveway, but you’ll climb a massive mountain in a faraway country?”

She was right. Oh well, it was hilarious. Janet was laughing too.

“Someday I’d like to go trekking in the Himalayas,” Kim announced to her family at the dinner table.

“That’s a perfect example of hypocrisy coming from a couch potato like you,” sneered her brother.
Meanwhile, 13-year-old Marcie was doubled up with hilarity..

Would a striped hyena in the Himalayas,
Be a hilarious sight?
Could you spot a snow leopard, players
Amid the landscape of white?

You’ll find yak, elephant,
Black and brown bears too.
Nature has its own temperament,
Of their habitats making do.

There are macabre monkeys.
You may see rhinos with one horn,
Giant pandas and some foxes roaming free.
But you never will see a unicorn.

In naming large, strong creatures
There is only reverence for beauty.
This mountainous environment features,
Harshness according to duty.

In citing magnificent species
There is no hypocrisy.