Oh, if only SHE'D blog- revisited

Alas! Another response to my email from yet another " non-blogger" who should definitely blog!!
I guess I should thank them for not having a blog- I have material!!
This one is especially funny for those who grew up in Edmonton and have visited our so called zoo over the years.
Enjoy!


Now – as for your inability to blog the intimate details of your life – would you consider an anonymous memoir, instead? Something like “The Sordid Affairs of ‘K’.” Because really, it’s just selfish to keep the hilarity of your observations under wraps. My personal stuff is much less riveting, more dull and domestic. IF I was writing a blog this week, it would perhaps be something like this:

THE DAY THEY MADE US GO TO THE ZOO – PART DEUX

Okay...for all of you who are not Barbara...there’s a prologue. Several years ago, seeking some functional balance of visiting and responsibly caring for my children (only Steven and Grace, at the time), Barbara and I decided that we would go to the zoo. There, we reasoned, the kids would be enchanted by the poo-flinging primates while we could stand behind the stroller, chatting happily as we tend to do. It didn’t quite work out. It was drizzling just a little, if I remember correctly. Sort of chilly. Grace, at the tender age of about two, had already mastered the art of full-frontal-bitchery. Steven was no match, but still a game competitor, bringing his whiny little ass technique to the playing field. Barbara and I did not, therefore, achieve the pleasant visit that we set out to have. What we did get out of the deal was a photo of the two kids, posing in the mouth of the concrete whale sculpture, wearing soggy rain jackets and grim expressions that captured the misery of the outing. We titled it “The Day They Made Us Go to the Zoo.”
But time heals all wounds. Or wounds all heels. Or, at the very least, makes you forget the lessons that you swore you’d never forget. And so, a few weeks back, I mentioned to Barbara that I was planning on taking the kids to the zoo. “Your kids hate the zoo...remember?” she said, helpful friend that she is. I did remember, then, but thought that things would be different now. They are older. More thoughtful. More interested in animals that aren’t animated. So we picked a nice day when there was no rain in sight...just a nice, oppressive, 30 degrees and a blazing sun hanging in the sky...and WE WENT TO THE ZOO. AGAIN.
It is my theory that Valley Zoo started losing its charm the day they took “Storyland” out of its name. It has since been like a poem without a theme, or a balloon without air. Pointless, at best; soulless, at its worst. This is obvious the minute you walk through the gate and face what was once the “Three Little Pigs” scene and is now...a gerbil ranch. Seriously, it’s a couple bales of hay, a few pieces of PVC pipe for rambunctious games of hide-and-seek, and about a hundred rodents. “What’s wrong with that one?” asked William, pointing to a grotesquely pregnant female. I looked around and noticed that several other loose-lady gerbils were in similar shape. The sign on the fence that informs people of each animal’s status (extinct in the wild/endangered/etc.) classified them as “thriving.” No shit. We moved on.
We saw porcupines. We saw ducks. We saw roughly 2,000 lemurs. They actually have a habitat for the oh-so-exotic “crow.” Perhaps they should look at renaming to something along the lines of “The Quotidian Valley Zoo.” Or, “The Prosaic Valley Zoo.” I wanted to find the habitats for “The Common Household Mouse,” and the “Garbage-Eating Magpie,” but the kids wanted to go to the petting zoo. So we went. It was there that I really bemoaned the fact that I had forgotten my camera at home (alas, there will be no follow-up photo in the whale’s mouth). Eagerly awaiting your child’s petting at the zoo are roughly a half-dozen insane-looking chickens and two goats. One stood by the far fence, rolling a threatening, glassy eye in the direction of any child brave enough to approach. Few did. They were all opting for goat-number-two, who could have passed for dead, save the slight, tell-tale rise and fall of respiration. That shallow in-and-out, that was the only sign of life in this goat, who lay limply on its side in the middle of the dirt yard, assaulted by eager-to-pet children and the crazy, wandering chickens. As Natalie went bouncing over to maul this sad creature, Dennis looked worried about the kind of diseases that jump species. He asked if I thought it had expired. “No,” I said. “It’s just given up its soul.”
We moved on.
We discovered that the train, the highlight of every visit to the zoo since I was nine years old, is gone, baby, gone. The tracks are torn up, there’s a new building housing a few hundred of the ubiquitous lemurs built right over where the tracks used to be. So it looks pretty permanent. In its place, they offer “the new, ELECTRIC train!” which is roughly the size of a Tonka truck and wouldn’t amuse anyone over the age of two. But we bought ride tickets on the way in, and would be fucked if we didn’t get our money’s worth. So we forced Grace and the twins onto the merry-go-round. We would have made Steven suffer as well, because we’re all about fair treatment, but they won’t let you on the damn thing if you’re “taller than this line.” And he was. So we watched William and Natalie, bored but willing to endure the few minutes that it took, and Grace, who was clearly in HELL. Again, I itched for my camera, because the expression on her face was just about beyond description. It was rage, and humiliation, and fear of being spotted by someone she knew, all rolled up into one big facial stew. Her body language said, I am so cool, and so far above this. In fact, I am above everyone. It is criminal that I am forced to be with these people, let alone on this childish contraption. But it was a hard pose to pull off as she went up-and-down-up-and-down on her little pink horsie.
We moved on.
It was decided that the rest of the ride tickets would be used to let Will and Nat ride ponies until they puked. So we set off in search of the pony rides, situated in a far, far corner of the property that you just about need a pony ride to get to. On the way there, William finally saw something that excited him. “Hey!” he yelled. “It’s a Coke machine!!!” He actually went up and stroked it. We are mean parents who wouldn’t give the kids any change to plug into the thing (if only it had accepted ride tickets...), but we did all stop for a moment to marvel over the logistics of a big machine that was really just by a path in the midst of a field, apparently wired into Mother Earth herself. Then we saw other man-made structures jutting out of the meadow. “Bathrooms!” someone yelled, as we happened upon a row of ominously leaning porta-potties. “Sshhhh!” said Steven, “I’m going to pet it!” And he made a big show of sneaking up on the potty’s blind side, then reaching out, in a real Mutual of Omaha moment, to gently stroke it. Finally, we made it to the pony rides, where the twins each took two turns on a beaten-looking nag named “Sage.” I spent almost the entire time considering the posted rules sign, wondering why they wouldn’t let you ride a horse if you were wearing a thong. Eventually, at the end, I realized that they were referring to flip-flops.
I am telling you all of this because you are my memory-keepers. There is no photographic proof, this time...so I thought that a detailed written account was in order. In a couple of years, when I say, “Hey, wouldn’t it be fun to take the kids to the zoo?” I now expect seven emails or phone calls in response. “Remember...your kids hate the zoo,” is what you have to say.
Of course, I’ll probably go anyway.

Jo-Anne