Brian at the Zoo.

It's become apparent to me over the past year or so that I go to the zoo way too much. We all have things we do too much, but mine isn't even interesting. I don't masturbate in public too much, I don't poop 12 times a day, and I don't spend too much money on Austrian hookers, but I do go to the zoo too much. Pretty lame.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised at this. After all, I have 2 little kids, and for some reason, as a society we've decided that staring at sleeping wildlife is educational, not to mention the fact that we live 5 miles away from the zoo and have a membership there.

Pretty much without fail, the zoo experience goes like this: We get to the zoo, the kids run ahead, one of them falls and cries and wants a band-aid, we stare at the red-butted monkeys for a while, we go in the Tropics trail, the kids race through the exhibit, we go to the Minnesota Trail, the kids race even faster because it's cold in there and they stare at no animals because all they're interested in is getting to the next animal stamp as quickly as possible, we stare at the dolphins, one of the kids throws a tantrum because we have to leave, and then we leave. That's pretty much status quo for the zoo.

In fact, I bet I can tell you, in chronological order, what we do in the Tropics Trail. It goes like this.

-Enter
-See the large lizard in an exhibit with silhouettes of large, extinct animals.
-Bronze tortoise statue that the kids always feel the need to climb on until one of them falls off and cries
-Mynah bird that never says anything even though mynah birds are notoriously vocal
-Egg scultures that kids manhandle and sometimes lick, much to my chagrin
-2 different colored lemurs that occasionally screech loudly and make everyone think that the zoo animals are staging a riot.
-Black and white monkeys that aren't there anymore, because according to the sign left by the zookeeper, they've been at the "doctor" for 3 months. They're probably dead.
-In the same enclosure are flamingos and ducks. This is a common theme at this portion of the zoo. The kids try to stand on one leg like a flamingo. They fall over. They cry.
-A cave that the kids run in to. Then they pop out the wrong end and for a second they are lost. This frightens us as parents.
-A bird with a gigantic nose. This is a new gigantic nosed bird because I know, since I go to the zoo too much, that the old gigantic nosed bird died. From a stuffy gigantic nose.
-A tree kangaroo that never does anything. I remarked once that it was a statue, and a woman next to me reassured her children by stating, "That man is a liar honey." I felt bad.
-A big fat cow looking thing with a small elephant trunk called a Tapir. The Tapir smells great, if you think a dead old lady who's been laying in a shallow pool of fetid water in the desert for 4 days smells great. In the same exhibit is an animal that looks like a big black house cat (I forget it's name) and smells like popcorn. Another double animal exhibit?? I wonder if the zoo people were carrying the popcorn cat thing and then it started scratching and hissing at them and they dropped in into the Tapir exhibit and were just like "Whatever. It can stay there, it scratched my arm."
-Some tortoises that don't hold anyone's attention for long because the most exciting things they do are turn their heads and chew lettuce. That's pretty boring.
-The upper portion of the coral reef. There's a huge glare coming from the top of the zoo so you can't see anything
-The lower portion of the coral reef. This part is underwater and everyone hangs out there. Sometimes there's a scuba diver with a microphone in there and he feeds fish and answers the same three stupid questions from kids, in slightly different variations:
1.) Do the fishes eat food?
2.) What kind of fish is that big shark?
3.) Are you a swamp monster?
-Some really smelly warthogs. The warthogs never move but you can tell they are alive because they smell like inside buns left on the counter overnight.
-Another double animal exhibit. A red panda who is always sleeping on a tree branch. In the back portion are a few goats seemingly stuck high on tiny ledges on this make believe mountain. I think they act as sherpas if the red panda ever wants to go on an expedition. Or maybe they're just goats.
-Another dark portion. It's under construction, so there's nothing in it except another lemur, and a very large snake that is always curled up in a tiny ball. This is the portion of the zoo that we lost my grandmother in in 1985. We went in, she was with us, we popped out, she was gone. She was lost for like 3 hours too. We almost just gave up and left without her. Lord knows what she doing during that time. Probably sitting in a chair smoking cigarettes and doing crossword puzzles. Since then I've had a profound fear of getting lost in the dark part of zoos. It's not as profound as my fear of big, violent lesbians, but still...
-A section filled with birds that you can't really see because there are too many trees in the way.
-A door made of hanging pieces of bamboo that you have to smash through, so it feels like you're entering a fortune teller's lair. The kids make sure to smash through the bamboo repeatedly until I threaten to beat them about the buttocks if they don't stop.
-Some poison frogs. I know they are poison because they are brightly colored and because they are actually called "Poison Frogs"
-Quadruple animal exhibit alert. A sloth who really might be dead, some more tiny monkeys, a couple of birds, and the infamous red-rumped agouti all share an enclosure. Did the zoo run out of funding or something?
-Finally, another double animal enclosure. An anteater, and some more tiny monkeys share space.

By the end the kids are practically sprinting to get to God knows where, but they always want to stop at that stupid coin thing, where you put a coin in and then in rolls around in a circle for a while before falling into a hole. That stupid thing is like crack to kids. We never have change so they always wind up having a big fit as we're leaving Tropics Trail.

See, I go to the zoo too much. But just to prove to you what a moron I am, we're going on a Disney Cruise in April, and what is the shore excursion we signed up for in the Bahamas? That's right, the zoo. I'm dumb.