Apr 232008
 

 

The thought of the zoo usually brings to mind smiling families, ice cream stands, fluffy animals, and tasty pizza; but then I get there and remember that really it’s full of screaming kids, air that’s heavy with fecal fumes, asshole mothers carting around wagonfuls of screaming kids, exhibits blocked by screaming kids, screaming kids in buses, screaming kids wearing  matching school district t-shirts, restroom entrances flanked by screaming kids, moms in ill-fitted jeans screaming at the screaming kids, balding dads blocking out the screaming kids by fantasizing of beer and slutty babysitters. Oh, and old people. Old people on foot; old people on tram, old people in motorized wheelchairs running over screaming kids and old people on foot.

Let me break down my zoo jaunt for you:

Car ride: Are we there yet, are we there yet.

<20 minutes: Oh my god animals look at the tigers oh my god ice cream oooh Dippin’ Dots!

<30 minutes: I’m bored. I’m hungry. I’m bored. I’m hungry. Ew, it smells.

<45 minutes:  When are we leaving?

The worst thing for me is how predictable it is. I know that around that bend is the monkey house. I know the kimodo dragon won’t be out. I know I will hate everyone there. I know I will have to restrain myself from punting kids over fences. I know I’ll be disappointed by the food at the cafeteria and I know that Henry will act shocked at how expensive everything is.

Maybe the zoo can change some shit up, create a theme. Like, maybe The Zoo Takes Harlem. So instead of feigning astonishment and adoping a face full of wonder when I witness the requisite elephant-takes-a-dump scene, perhaps my reaction would be genuine if I stumbled upon the elephants warming themselves in a front of a garbage can fire with a cluster of hobos. Perhaps the zebras could throw some dice in an alley with some inner city kids, maybe the monkeys could smoke some crack under a bridge. I’d love to see the bears and the ostriches in a gang war.

Maybe schedule some human sacrifices. I volunteer the albinos. Who would really miss a few hundred albinos per season anyway, am I right Pittsburgh Zoo?

Chooch was mainly interested in the other children. "Yeah, but look at the LION," I would say, but he would laugh and point at the kids around him, thinking they were there for his amusement. Wait, I guess he really is a lot like me.

 

 

At the polar bear exhibit, some little mother fucker squeezed out the last bit of juice from a juice box and then tossed it onto the ground. I was appalled. I vocalized my disgust by scraping sound off my throat and scowled at him and his asshole mother as they walked away. I wanted to say something, shove my fist through their faces, make a citizens arrest.

"He’s like, six years old," Henry pointed out, concerned that I was considering physical punishment.  I didn’t care! Littering is littering and his vagina-faced mother is allowing him to ruin MY WORLD.

 

 

We ran into them again before we left, in the reptile house, where I noticed that his t-shirt said, "Make pizza, not war." Making sure the little littering asshole was within earshot, I said smugly to Henry, "I want to make him a shirt that says ‘Empty juice boxes go in the garbage can, not on the ground.’" Henry rolled his eyes and continued along with Chooch.

The next thing I knew, the asshole’s equally assholey mother came barrelling around a corner, shouting, "Bram! Bram!" Her miniature litterer broke through a crowd of kids, tears streaming down his face — and in those tears my vindication manifested — and he ran into his mother’s arms.

"That’s what happens to kids who litter," I said loudly to Henry. "They get LOST." Henry told me to drop it, but I wasn’t done gloating. And it figures his name is Bram. Bram. Ha! I scoff at you, Bram.

Our last stop was the Dippin’ Dots stand, where we shared a dish of banana split freeze-dried balls of ice cream that cost FOUR DOLLARS PLUS TAX. Fuck you, zoo. It’s freezer-burnt ice cream crumbs, for Christ’s sake. As we were finishing, a partially-crippled woman sat down at the other end of our picnic table. We got up to leave and I said to Henry, "I hope she doesn’t think we left because she’s degenerate." I was actually concerned about someone’s feelings for once!

"I would never leave just because someone sat down beside me. Unless it was you," Henry said. And then we left.

 

Apr 222008
 

Urgent. Will die without reading.

  • 13:02 It’s surprising how many times a day I wash dishes, considering there’s only three of us and Chooch mostly eats off the floor. #
  • 13:36 I still feel sad when I think about Versace’s murder. Like I was his bastard child from a hetero fling & I got gypped out of inheritance.  #
  • 14:56 At work and it suddenly smells like someone just peed. #
  • 15:02 Pee smell was burning bag of popcorn that someone tossed, still aflame, in the trash. Big Bob saved day.  #
  • 15:22 Dear Robert Smith: not sure what I’d have done if you weren’t born. Happy fucking birthday, yo. #
  • 17:46 I usually have no idea what I’m talking about, but I like to think it sounds good. #
  • 19:25 define irony: asking Eleanore to cut – WITH SCISSORS – a stray thread from the back of my shirt #
  • 20:36 I often have urges to punch myself in the head. like now. what a coincidence. #
  • 09:29 I could never just take a hearty bite out of a whole tomato and call it a snack. That’s what apples are for. And Sno-balls. #
  • 11:07 Hoping the "poop, then stick fingers in it" phase ends soon. For Chooch, I mean. I outgrew that three yrs ago. #

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