I love the zoo, but hate the maulings

Spring is the best time to go to the zoo. Today I went and saw some giraffes mating. Well, kind of. He was trying really hard, but she was having none of it, which made it a thousand times more awesome, watching him get shot down repeatedly.

Animal sex is amusing all on its own, but what makes it much more amusing is listening to parents trying to avoid having to explain what's happening to their little ones through a variety of futile distraction techniques.

While they worked hard to preserve their children's innocence, I took a picture.



I also enjoy taunting animals that would maul me if I ran into them in nature. They mainly ignore it, but I think it affects them more than they let on.

I spent awhile standing behind a tree watching a polar bear and imagining that we were out in the wild in an epic man-against-nature struggle. I was hoping that he would see me and charge, but he only glanced at me briefly with a "Seriously, I can see you, but I'm pretending not to because I'm embarrassed for you," look. And that's when I learned that polar bears are surprisingly expressive. Also, kind of assholes.



Anything monkey or monkey-like is exciting to me. There was a monkey-like creature (clearly I don't go to the zoo to learn taxonomy) missing a hind leg. People seemed sad for it, but I thought he had it set. If he wasn't in the zoo he probably would have been eaten a long time ago. He worked really hard to make friends.

Too hard. I'm glad I'm not a monkey, because he would annoy me but then I would feel bad because of the missing leg, but then think, "Seriously, why so annoying?" The internal conflict of annoyance versus sympathy would almost certainly obliterate me over time. Luckily, I'm not a monkey.

Sometimes from a distance I'll see a parent pick up a small child and think "Monkey!" then get very sad when I realize it's not monkey, just a tiny human. I see those all the time. That is the part of the zoo that is sad, the tricks. I don't like to be tricked. Especially by small children masquerading as monkeys.



Driving home I thought, "This is a nice neighbourhood. I wonder if the property value is affected by the increased odds of tiger mauling." I haven't really looked into it, but if it isn't, I think it should be. Tiger maulings suck. Although, I have to admit that part of the draw of the zoo is the potential for some sort of terrifying animal escape, like in Jurassic Park.

After seeing Jurassic Park, I couldn't sleep for multiple days because I was pretty sure a Velociraptor was going to eat me in the night. The only reason I was ever able to sleep again was realizing that their big clawed hands can only open lever-style door handles. They are powerless against the common doorknobs, no matter how intelligent they may be. And that is the story of how I overcame my fear of Velociraptors.