Ah the zoo. I dropped in on the zoo over the weekend for one of my yearly zoo visits. It’s right down the road and it does not cost much
so it’s always fun to drop in on once in a while.
Now
there are some animals I feel sorry for at the zoo. For example; all the cats. Whenever I see the cats at the zoo
they are panting and pacing and simply have that look in their eye where they wish they could simply leap the fence and run for freedom. Either that or leap the fence and maul one of the little kids that scream at them day in and day out.
However
some animals I believe are perfectly happy in the zoo. For instance
most of the monkeys. Those guys are in monkey heaven. They have a nice safe cage they can lounge about in all day
they get fed treats on a regular bases and have free healthcare to boot. They have all the time in the world to do important monkey business
like groom and masturbate and fling poo. I think if you tossed one of those monkeys out of the zoo
it would fight it’s way back in. Monkeys are the welfare recipients of the zoo world.
Another creature who I believe enjoys living in the zoo are sloths. Because
well
look at them. They do not do anything but hang from their freaky claws. They have nowhere to go. They have nothing to do. Sitting in a cage and amusing a set of fat tourists from Ohio is probably the highpoint of their existence.
I have to say
the animal I was most amused by at the zoo were the rats. They were not on display but were some wild rats that sneaked in to steal some bird food from one of the giant freak birds display. I forgot what the bird was. It looked like some freaky toucan. But the bird is not important
what was amusing was the little colony of rats that were making acrobatic leaps and stunts to eat some freak-toucan-chunchies and to slurp water out of it’s bowl. They reminded me of ‘Templeton’ the rat from charletts web.
"A Zoo is a smorgious board
all around
on the ground
after the sun goes down!"
Eventually I got sick of all the screaming kids. Inside one building some little blond girl ran right up to me and rammed her eyeball into my elbow. She jumped back and rubbed her eye and looked at me accusingly. I was not about to apologize to her. If anything she deserved a nasty laugh that would probably keep her from running into strangers in the future.
Over the weekend I worked a little on my outdoor shower. I put down the concrete that will be the foundation. I need a lot more practice laying concrete. One of my problems is that I used an old bag that a friend had given me
and it did not mix with water properly. Instead it just left a pile of wet rocks. Annoyed
I had to fling a number of them away and lay down a fresh layer of concrete. It does not have to look really pretty because a small set of deck-like boards are going over it anyways
so no one will see it
but it still annoys me.
I managed to watch the new Doctor Who over the weekend as well. I was preparing for the worse
but it was actually quite good. When they went five million years into the future and met the last human
which was just skin stretched out on a tarp with it’s brain in a jar of fluid under it
I knew I was going to enjoy the show.
No real plans this week. Just waiting for payday.
2026 Update
Time machine dialed to March 2006, where the monkeys have healthcare and the humans pay cash for cement.
Ah, 2006. A simpler torture. You visited a zoo and the main threat was a child ramming her eyeball into your elbow, not a parent live-streaming the encounter for outrage clicks. These days the screaming kids have phones; the cats are still pacing, but now their enclosure has a TikTok account and a gift-shop collab. You laid concrete from an old bag a friend gave you—now we order 'professionally installed outdoor showers' through apps and complain about the subscription fee for the outdoor-shower-control firmware. The monkeys remain welfare queens, except now they're influencers. Doctor Who you caught over the weekend because television actually happened at broadcast times, like church. Now it's a 900-episode streaming labyrinth with spin-offs on four services requiring seven passwords. And payday? You waited for a paper check. I wait for a notification and then immediately watch it get eaten by a bundle of auto-pays. The zoo rats would probably still outwit all of it.
“2006 Ed, why did you accept an old bag of concrete from a friend in the first place—was it a gift, a dare, or just the kind of bargain that only a man watching a tarp-covered human brain would trust? And after flinging the wet rocks, did you ever wonder whether the zoo cats would've considered that an upgrade over their pacing?” — Beelzebubba the Third
2006 Ed: Well, Beelzebubba, you've got to understand—this friend of mine is the kind of guy who gives you a bag of concrete like it's a birthday present, and you don't ask questions because the price tag is zero. Free is free, even if it's a bag that's been sitting in his shed since the Nixon administration. I figured, how bad could it be? Concrete's concrete, right? Ha. Ha ha. It turned into wet rocks, and I spent a good hour chucking them into the weeds like some sort of deranged landscaper. And honestly? Yeah, I did think about the zoo cats while I was doing it. Those panting little prisoners would probably kill for a pile of rocks to sprawl on instead of that hot concrete pad they pace all day. Maybe I should donate my rejects. Could start a whole new exhibit: "The Flinging Rocks of Ed." Now that's entertainment.
