Not Lady Like

Earlier this week I took my  children to the zoo.  We said hello to all the animals and finished with the gorillas.  “What does a gorilla say?” I ask.  They thump their bitty chests and grunt “hoo-hoo.”

“Oh look!  The gorrilla is coming this way!” I point as the silverback saunters up the hill.  I have barely ever seen them move.  Usually they lay about looking consumed in boredom.  He is massive.  Slowly he places a right arm and then a left and then a flash!  Suddenly a streak of black comes at the glass with a ”BOOM!”

“Oh shit! I mean shoot, kids…he hit the glass?” I am breathing heavy and laughing nervously.  My daughter grabs my legs and my son takes four large steps back.  The gorilla turns and charges at the glass again.  Leaping through the air he pounds his body into the plexi-division.  He retracts and takes a leak in the grass.  Men.

“He’s going pee-pee!” my son snickers.  The gorilla returns to the glass and places his head against it looking right at us.

“Hey, go stand by the gorilla,” I encourage my son, “Mommy take your picture.”

“No.”

On second thought, I have seen a detoxing patient chunk a chair through the plexi-glass window of a hospital room on the 7th floor.  We all step back.  Apparently this gorilla has been newly introduced to the zoo.  The other gorilla transferred off to San Diego or somewhere and here and now these two males are working things out.  “BOOM” he hits the glass again.

I ask my mother in law, “If you knew you were going to die, who would you rather have do you in, a gorilla or a grizzly bear?”

“A grizzly bear,” she replies, “I’m Canadian.”

I watch this 800 pound beast pace back and forth.  I am impressed at the speed he demonstrated.  My heart patters as I walk up to the glass.  I am going with gorilla, but not today.

“Who wants ice cream?” and the sound of “me!” explodes.

~ by drea on March 5, 2009.