It was cold when we went to the zoo last Sunday. It was nice to meet all the animals again. They’ve been doing their thing for millions of years and they’re not planning to change.
I love animals. From my dog to a snake chillin’ the afternoon away in a fake tree to some giraffe eyeing a crowd of zoo onlookers as impassively as a supermodel would, they all seem to look upon us interested mainly in why we are interested in them.
Every species, I suppose for evolutionary reasons, is curious mostly about its own species. They seem to appreciate us, each according to its intellect, for we are their keepers. But cats want to know what’s happening with other cats, birds with fellow birds, etc.
I went with some fine people: my great new girlfriend, Jessie; her mom and sister, in for the weekend from Connecticut; and my dear old pal Rob (whom we call “D.C. Rob” or “Lawyer Rob,” to distinguish him from all the other Robs I associate with).
The gorillas that afternoon were interested in us. A smaller one took delight in sneaking up and punching the glass of the ape cage hard near the face of any blonde woman looking in the wrong direction. The human crowd would squeal. The huge silverback male leader gazed upon the event without emotion.
There are two activities at the zoo, though, that drive me crazy. The first is the pretend zoological expertise people profess. “That’s a ferret!” I overheard a man tell his girlfriend in the Small Mammal House. He was looking at a porcupine. Read the sign, man, read the sign.
But please don’t read FROM the sign. This happens a lot: “Kids, that’s a golden lion-headed tamarind. They’re native to southwestern Bali.” So knowledgeable! And then said reader starts smacking the glass and scaring the poor beast -- which is a sloth anyway.
Second, it’s the sexism at the zoo. Inevitably, different species have evolved different gender roles. Male lions are lazy. OK. “Just like all men,” I never fail to hear someone conspiratorially whisper nearby, in the kind of whisper you can’t avoid hearing.
Even so with the cuddly giant pandas, paragons of adorability. Mei Xiang, the mom, sat with her new baby, Butter Stick, knocking him away again and again when he tried to attach onto her, taking away the bamboo stick he gnawed on and eating it herself. Butter Stick’s dad sat far away in a corner, tossing a ball around by himself. Way to represent your sex, old man!
That night, we trod through the Mt. Pleasant cold to an Ecuadorian restaurant. A few young waitresses served us good food. Football -- both the U.S. and international kinds -- played on big screens. Men sat all over being served that Sunday, the day of rest. A huge man dressed in black and wearing a pinky ring the size and color of an Oscar award sat at the bar dipping his fingers into a plate of something red and gelatinous. He looked greasy but important, calling out commands to the line cooks and waitresses. Ah, I thought: the silverback male.