Remember how I said I was going to the zoo? Well, I did. It was me and Soupo and Katcha and my brother Skippy and his wife and my little sister and her husband. He (my sister’s husband) was supposed to be at work, but he was sick so he didn’t go. But he did go to the zoo. Then he felt better. So if you’re sick, go to the zoo. It might help.
While we were at the zoo, we went to the Children’s Zoo. They have animals there you can pet if they (the animals) happen to want to be petted. You can tell if they want to be petted because then they (the animals) are right next to the fence. If they back off, just out of reach to taunt you, they don’t want to be petted.
There was this pot bellied pig (which are not attractive, so I don’t knonw why people would want them for a pet in their own home) that was sleeping right by the fence. That meant it wanted to be petted while it slept. Multi-tasking. I wanted to know what a pig felt like, so I petted it through the fence. Pot bellied pigs are not cuddly, they are bristly. (Another reason their pet-ness desirability escapes me.) But, while I was petting a pig, I thought I’d do it right. I scritched really hard on the pig. Scritch, scritch, scritch. It was kinda gross because flakes of dry pig skin were flying off the pig. (Keep on as a pet? Oh yeah.) But the pig liked it. It didn’t wake up but it was moaning. So I made a pig happy.
Then we went to feed the goats. The zoo people feed the goats anyway, but they have these gumball machines of Goat Chow. If you have 25¢, you can get a skimpy handfull of Goat Chow. Probably a whole 4¢ worth. Then you can feed the goats. The goats watch to see who gets Goat Chow from the gumball machines and when you go into the goat enclosure, they want to be your friend. Unless you’re slow with the Chow. They they swarm you. Goats can be rude that way. I only gave the Goat Chow to the polite goats. The rude goats went and mugged little kids because they’d just turn over their Chow to whatever goat was near so they wouldn’t be burried under a mass of goats. Kids can be big chickens that way.
After I gave away all my Chow, I petted a goat. Actually a couple of them. Goats aren’t all that cuddly, but they’re better than pigs. Being all scientiffically minded, I experimented on a goat. Which is beeter, getting petted, or more Chow? Well, if you pet them right, they’d rather get scritchies than more Chow since, like I said, they get fed anyway. If you pet them like you’re really supposed to, you know- gently with your hand flat, they get bored with that and will wander off looking for a little kid they can mug for more Chow. If you really scritch on them, making your hand like a big spider, all spread out, and then having your spider-hand do push-ups on the side of the goat, the goat likes that. You know when you’re doing it right because the goat will lean into you and you’ll raise a cloud of dust off the side of the goat.
You know how when you scritch on a dog just right in just the right spot on the neck, the dog will turn its head all twisty because it feels so good? Goats will do that too. They don’t moan like pot bellied pigs though. Goats have more self esteem than a pig.
We saw the rhinoscerous. It was swimming in its pool. Did you know rhinos swim? I didn’t. It really wasn’t actually “swimming” so much as “standing there in the pool”. Then it went all the way under water. Did you know rhinos did that? I didn’t. The rhino stood there in the middle of its pool for a while and then slowly sunk deeper and deeper. Then just its nose was sticking out. Then it ducked all the way under water. Then it started to roll over. Oh no! Was the rhino going to drown right there in front of my children? No. It jst rested on its side on the bottom of the pool. Then it wriggled a little to itch its giant rhino side on the bottom of the cement pond. Then it finally stood back up.
You know what the rhino did after it stood back up? It “made bubbles” in the pool. Not with its mouth or nose neither. And it made a LOT of bubbles. For, like, 30 or 45 seconds there were bubbles churning the water at the rhino’s nether end. I thought that little display would sink the rhino again, but it didn’t.
It was hot, so I got an Icee for me and the boys to share. Katcha took a giant bite because he really likes Icees (you have to eat your Icee with a spoon at the zoo, it’s a rule). He got a giant Brain Freeze and wasn’t happy. So we had to find a water fountain so he could wash the Icee that was freezing his brain down. No permanent damage was noted.
You know what else they have at the zoo? Free range peacocks. They’ll come up to you while you’re trying to eat your lunch and if you’re not carefull, they’ll steal your food! Right out of your hand! The cheek! You have to be vigilant when there are peacocks around. And you can’t just shoo them away. They live at the zoo, they know you’re not going to actually do anything. So to get them to leave so your children can finish their peanut butter and jelly sammiches, you have to go right up to the peacocks and clap your hands and say “shoo bird!” It doesn’t scare them at all, but it lets them know you’re not going to be giving them any of your food and they wander off looking for an easier mark.
There was a mommy peacock (peahen) and a baby peacock (baby peacock) mooching around. The peahen would half-peck at something to let the baby peacock know it was something good to eat. The peahen taught the baby peacock to eat pizza crust, popcorn and an ant while we were there. There was a big lump of something the peahen was letting the baby peacock eat, only a chickadee tried to swoop in a swipe it. The peahen said “I don’t think so!” (in peacock) and grabbed the chickadee on his back (it was a boy chickadee) and threw him across the ground! Mean assed mommy bird! The chickadee was OK, not really hurt at all. So I threw him some goldfish crackers. I didn’t let the peahen have any.
-Rue. (zooed out)
