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Zoo Story

We went to the zoo. I dragged them all to the zoo right after breakfast. The first animal we saw was the gorilla. He had a fat body and a small head. His arms were long. His hair was shiny black but missing in some areas. He was not impressive, as far as gorillas go. We looked at him for a good five minutes and could not get his attention. We were standing right in front of him, and he acted as if we weren’t even there. You could tell he was psyching himself into thinking that he wasn’t in a zoo. So I suggested the giraffes. When I was a kid, I used to draw nothing but giraffes, and I read about giraffes in the library. Every time the library got a new book on giraffes, I read it. And when I went to a new library, I would always check to see what giraffe books they had on their shelves. The giraffes in the zoo that day were not impressive. I was not impressed. And Jenny’s kids weren’t either. I tried to make the giraffes interesting. I told them what reticulated meant. I told them about the horns the giraffes had, and why the giraffes tongue was purple—so it wouldn’t get sunburned. Jenny squeezed my arm, which meant I should stop talking. Maybe we were too early. The concessions weren’t opened yet. Some of the animals were getting their food delivered, others were getting their crap shoveled out of their cage. “Ask them questions,” Jenny said, pointing her chin at her kids. The kids stared at me same as they did at the gorilla. I was going to ape it up for them, see if I could put a smile on their face and show Jenny that I had a sense of humor. But I looked at their little faces and all I could see was their dad—his wide-set bored eyes. I said, “Is it true that dad of yours never took you to the zoo?”

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