The sun was shining, the sky was clear, and the fresh smell of exotic animal feces hung in the air. It was a perfect day to be at the zoo.
It was our daughter’s first visit. We were celebrating our little monkey turning two and what better way to celebrate than with animals imported from Africa and other parts of the world.
There were lions and tigers and bears, oh my. Lions and tigers and bears, oh my. Apologies, but I’m legally required to include that sentence when referencing any activity involving animals. For clarity, we only saw two of the three. We never made it to the bears.
We saw numerous majestic animals in all their glory. We saw a cheetah, the fastest land animal in the world. Sitting there. Doing nothing. The ferocious King of the Jungle, the lion, lying asleep. The mighty rhinoceros, scratching its backside.
The zoo is nothing like watching the National Geographic Channel. It’s more like watching the fireplace channel that’s on around Christmas. Most of the animals act like still life versions of themselves. They sit, they sleep, they swat at flies. They’re couch potatoes.
Yet they’re still magnificent in the eyes of a toddler.
And our toddler was mesmerized. She just stared. Her eyes as wide as dinner plates. The gears in her mind must have been shifting. Elephants are real, they aren’t just tiny plastic creatures that I throw at my parents during tantrums.
“Look, look,” she said as we looked at the animals.
“This is where Disney steals its characters from,” I told her.
Every new animal encounter was followed by her personally greeting the beast. “Hi elephant!” or “Hi giraffe!”
Some animals received accompanying actions. The elephant received a trunk gesture and noise. The gorillas received chest beating. The majestic seagull received a shooing.
She wanted to sit on the fences of all the animal enclosures. Fears of being the parent who accidentally drops his child into the zebra or tiger enclosure flashed into my mind. Local news, here we come.
Her favourite part of the zoo visit? Not the exotic animals. It was the four-dollars-a-ride carousel that was five feet from the entrance. She smiled and beamed as she rode a fiberglass dolphin in circles. Those smiles turned to tantrum-y tears when the ride stopped and we left the zoo.
Luckily, she fell asleep almost immediately in the car ride home. The zoo-induced exhaustion was too much.
As she slept, my wife and I looked at our little monkey in awe. Turns out watching an animal sleep is entertaining even when you’re not at the zoo.
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