I Want a Hippopotamus For Christmas

Today I was in the kitchen looking for a can opener. Since I don't know where anything is, this involved opening every drawer in sight. I never did find a can opener, but I did find a drawer dedicated solely to housing this large wooden hippo. Since I was home alone at the time, I felt it was appropriate to take it out and inspect it. Since this statue is taking up valuable space in our little kitchen and it is obviously more important than a can opener, I figured there must be something special about it. Maybe it’s a knife sharpener. Maybe it’s an egg timer or something. It has to serve some purpose, right? Why else would it get its own drawer in the kitchen? I inspected it, but alas, it was just a solid piece of wood... it doesn't even eat marbles.