I don't know what started it, really!! I'm obsessed with ALL animals, and collect stuffed animals and animal print stuff to an unacceptable extent
(I always GOT stuffed animals as gifts from my friends in college), so I already had several penguins to begin with. A couple of years ago, two friends of mine who were interning in DC and I went to a reception on the Hill for Jack Hanna and he'd brought a penguin and it was SO cute -- it was waddling around with it's little wobbly pengie head....
. They gave out free stuffed animals at the reception, so all three of us got penguins (and I took a zebra and rhino too
), and we all named them Trainor after this guy that we knew that we teased all the time. When I'd moved to DC, I'd only brought one stuffed animal, a penguin, from home (and had the rest put into storage), so since I now had two penguins, they just kept piling up and I started collecting penguin everything.
Where did you see a live one?