This guy needs a job and decides to apply at the zoo. As it happened, their star attraction, a gorilla, had passed away the night before and they had carefully preserved his hide. They tell this guy that they'll pay him well if he would dress up in the gorillas skin and pretend to be the gorilla so people will keep coming to the zoo.

The guy has his doubts, but Hey! He needs the money, so he puts on the skin and goes out into the cage. The people all cheer to see him. This isn't so bad, he thinks, and he starts really putting on a show, jumping around, beating his chest and roaring, swinging around. The people love it!

During one acrobatic attempt, though, he loses his balance and crashes through some safety netting, landing square in the middle of the lion cage!

As he lies there stunned, the lion roars. He's terrified and starts screaming, "Help, Help, Help!" The lion races over to him, places his paws on his chest and hisses, "Shut up or we'll BOTH lose our jobs!"


(old but still fuuny)

I paid a visit to the St. Louis Zoo several years ago. I mean the place was pretty boring, with the animals in cages and all. I say you want to make the zoo fun, let the animal roam free, but I digress...

Anyway, there was this one high point, they called him Phil, the gorilla. They could have just called him Phil, I guess, but for those who don't know a gorilla from a garage door, I suppose the title helped them. Oh, and speaking of those not so highly intellectual types, they were the ones hanging on the perimeter fence to make monkey noises at the gorilla. The Universe observed this from a distance, because The Universe don't play that.

Well now lets look at this from the Phil's point of view. On the surface, Phil looks like a broken beast; just sitting there, near his pond next to the front edge of the cage, looking depressed because this is probably day 999 of monkey people making fun of his caged state. Well, that's what it looked like on the surface, and continued to appear that way until a larger crowed started mounting the fence and taunting him. At that point, Phil comes into his alter ego. He snaps to life and rears back into his water supply and with his big right hand, flings copious amounts of pond water and drenches everyone standing at the perimeter fence! Then, after everyone ran screaming, and I kid you not about this, Phil proceeded to run in a large circle and then slid on the wet cement, inside his cage, onto his back. When he came to a stop, he kicked his feet in the air, held his chest, and made a series of breathing grunts. In other words, Phil was doing his version ROcageFLMAO long before AOL Speak came along. What also amazed me, because I stuck around to see what would happen next, was that Phil reset and re-performed his entire act on the next group of unaware visitors who wandered by!

Well, I guess for a caged animal, Phil found a coping mechanism that worked for him; you know, the whole, When life hands you lemons thing... Well I guess for Phil, when life handed him humans, making monkey noises, outside his cage, he made monkeys out of them!

The Universe

Andy Rooney Side Note: Have you ever wondered when life handed you lemons and you made lemonade what you would have done if life handed you a sack of crap? Would juicing it really make your life any better?

That is funny! I wonder how many other animals laugh at silly human behavior? More than we know, I'll bet.

I never enjoyed going to the zoo. It is sad to see the animals in cages even though some of them are very nice cages, but cages still. The wild animal parks that you travel through by car seem to be better for the animals. I haven't been to a zoo in years, or an animal park either. I do enjoy watching the wild animal documentaries on TV as long as no hunting is shown by man or beast..lol.

I have a vhs called 'People of the Forest' . It belonged to my mom, and now is in my collection. Anyway, it is about a family of chimpanzees in Tanzania. It was filmed over 20 years of studing/viewing the chimps. The photography and story line are excellent. Kids and adults enjoy it. If you ever get the chance to view it, or buy it, I recommend it. I've seen it for sale on Amazon and I saw a great deal on ebay once.

That's one reason I moved north of L.A.

There is a pretty neat zoo in Las Vegas that cares mostly for discarded animals. They have injured animals they nurse back to health. The cages or containment areas are quite large. I went up to one with a pair of ravens in it. It had a big sign up to be careful and not touch the birds. I naturally ignored it. I put my hand through so I could hover it at face level with one of the ravens; I suspect it was the female. Anyway, instead of biting my finger off, as the sign would suggest, she did what I though she might do, she put her head down so I could give it a good scratching.

I find intelligent animals, like ravens, to be very social if you give them a chance. I think God's plan is absolute crap but them I go out and order a cheese burger and remember that nowhere in the fast food place is there a sign that states, No cows were injured in the making of your dinner. Oh well.

That zoo also had some of the neatest people working there. They really cared for the animals until they could be released back into the wild. They also had a lot of chickens running about. I liked this one hen that was all purple. She would let me feed her and I got close enough to get her to hop up on my arm. I walked with her on my arm over to the handlers facility and asked one of the zookeepers, "How much ya want for this chicken?" She looked at me with an absolutely stunned expression and stated, "Sir, we don't sell our chickens!" She was about to mention something that I can't go around grabbing them when she noticed that I didn't have a hold of the bird, the bird was just sitting comfortably on my arm. She then stated she had never seen any visitor or handler, for that matter, do that. I told her it was probably because of what I do for a living. She asked me, "Oh, are you a veterinarian?" I told her, "No, I twist necks for a living." At that point, my wife could that the lady was about to make a lunge to save the chicken... so my wife exclaimed, "Don't take him too seriously, he's a Chiropractor." I knew I should have dropped out of school and became a "real" doctor.

Well, long story longer, I had to leave the chicken there, although she did spend the rest of day the following me around the park... as did the zookeeper, for that matter.


The Universe

That zoo sounds like they are doing a great service, and the caregivers sound very protective..lol..good for them! And, very good for the animals!

I like your chicken story. I have one I will share with you. Well, actually it is the boss's story.

When he was a kid he had a pet chicken. He named her "Crazy Susan" because she was a special chicken. She laid eggs and she crowed like a rooster. He would hook up a small wagon to the back of his bike and go to the feed store to buy chicken feed. Crazy Susan would ride in the wagon to the store and back without trying getting out. She was smart enough to know where, and who, her next meal was coming from. Or, she might have just loved the feel of the breeze blowing through her feathers.

Now I have a confession to make. I hate chickens and they scare me. My mom raised them for food and eggs when I was young blondie. It was my chore to feed them. I was supposed to take the food out to them and 'toss and scatter' the food. They, of course, would come running when they saw me coming with the food. I would (every time) freeze from fright and just empty the pan in front of me. They would pick at the food and my toes until it was gone. My mom thought I loved the chickens and was watching them eat. Fact was, I was too scared to move. The only thing that made this okay with me was that my mom made the best fried chicken in the world!

I should have "fricasseen" it coming! And I wondered why you don't wear your hair feathered anymore. Hey mom, fry up that one! Let's have a party for the whole neighborhood and fry um all!

And meanwhile, while you're going through all of this childhood trauma, your hubby is out offering them public transportation. I mean he could have been the hero in the story and called Child Services... or maybw Col. Sanders... but I digress.

I take it the two of you connected in non-farm animal way and didn't meet at a county fair. Well, I didn't meet my wife at one, either, but it was one of our first dates together. I recall s\She took me on this darn ride that got stuck 100 feet in the air upside down. It ruined the date, because all of the condoms fell out of my pocket (OK, that part I made up) but we did get stuck for awhile upside down.

Anyway, after the fair was over, we went back to my car. I won her some stuff, which I needed to put in the hatch (Remember the hatchbacks in the 70's?. Now in the back of my car was my wooden Samurai sword. (That's a practice sword for Aikido so that when we screw up, we only give ourselves concussions rather than decapitating each other. (I know, that explains a lot but again, I digress...

Well, she smirked pretty good when she saw the wooden sword, I think she though I was some crazy person who likes to pretend I'm a pirate or something. Anyway, she did ask me, "OK, what's the big wooden sword for? I replied, "Aikido." She, of course had to ask, "What's Aikido?" That's when I quickly lifted all 5'8" of her a couple of feet off the ground and said, "That's Aikido!" Her only reply was, "Put me down!" To which I replied, "Ah, OK, you're funny looking." "Put me down, put me down!" "Ah, OK, you wear too much blush." "OK... SET ME DOWN!" I knew I liked her, because I could tell that even under pressure she was really a quick thinker. The only time that attribute ever failed her was at the alter; ah, lucky me!

The Universe

It sounds like you both are very lucky! A sense of humor is one of the main ingredients in a long happy marriage. Good cooking helps too.