Remember: You can’t go wrong with animals that masturbate.
Sh*tty Mom gets that it’s no easy task to run a zoo. There is the feeding and care of the animals in the zoo and then there is the feeding and care of the animals who live in the zoo. Wearing their tiny backpacks and complaining that everything is too far away. Looking like the stereotype of every American tourist in London.
However, after parking in a stadium lot, paying an admission charge of $15-plus per adult, and $12-plus per child, plus $9 for each small Pepsi, one’s expectations escalate. A trip to the zoo can easily turn into a $100 day.
The point is: These animals are in show business and they need to be on. Not “circus animal” on, where they’re dressed in outfits or sharing the stage with clowns. That’s abuse. No, they only need to be “zoo animal” on. And all that means is awake. And visible.
Are you a zoo animal? Get out from behind the rock and move, goddamnit. C’mon, you’re a jaguar. Act like it. You’re gonna just sit there with your back to the crowd? You’re so tired from your life of leisure that you can’t roam and snarl a little? Lunge, or a formal complaint will be filed.
The problem with zoo animals is they have a job for life. There’s no incentive to work hard—they’re tenured. What zoo animals need is to have their livelihood be threatened by younger, sexier versions of themselves.
It appears that the reason zoos have so many animals is that on any given day, at least 50 percent of them call in sick. Or they hide. Or hibernate. The camouflagers are the worst. They force you to stare angrily into their bland habitat, convinced there’s nothing there, until you notice out of the corner of your eye that one of the rocks just sneezed.
It’s not as if they need to camouflage themselves. They’re not being hunted. One can only conclude that the reason they’re blending in with their surroundings at the zoo is that they’re dicks.
It’s clear that some animals need to be fired, while others should be given a raise and access to hotter trainers. An animal-by-animal breakdown:
ELEPHANTS They can’t hide and they can’t curl up in a hostile ball (hello, bears). Elephants stand in their fake savannas, flapping their ears and swinging food into their mouths with delightful trunks. If they are depressed to be out of Africa, they don’t show it. Their attitude is excellent, and their resemblance to Dumbo, their representative in the cartoon world, makes them a favorite of the impossible-to-please toddler set.
Sh*tty Mom Recommendation: A 10 percent raise and double their office space.
BEARS Bears are awake for all of ten minutes a day. During those ten minutes, they hold a meeting and agree to pass out as soon as a parent says, “Oh look, Max, a bear!” Is there any act more cruel than falling asleep in full view of parents who have probably not slept in years? Just seeing them snore in the sun without flinching when children cry can inspire the most committed vegan to buy a hunting rifle. If bears were human, they would tap-dance in front of amputees.
Sh*tty Mom Recommendation: Two days in a game preserve with Sarah Palin.
ALLIGATORS Even when they’re motionless, their teeth stick out of their mouths. They look exciting and murderous. Alligators (and crocodiles) are effortlessly terrifying.
Sh*tty Mom Recommendation: 15 percent raise, and feed them one loud teenager a day.
FLAMINGOS Is there anything more delightful than a flock of high-stepping pink flamingos? Walking deliberately on their stick legs, as if waiting for cocktails to be served?
Sh*tty Mom Recommendation: Give these birds the martini they were so obviously born to drink.
PARROTS Parrots can talk. It’s unbelievable that other birds haven’t noticed the success that parrots enjoy and asked themselves why. “Why do the kids get excited about that noisy blue and green thing, and not me, a bald fucking eagle?”
Well, bald eagle, instead of spending all day posing for country-music album covers, or whatever it is you do now that you’re not nearly extinct, maybe you should look outside yourself and see that parrots speak English. And Spanish, and Russian, and every other language they’ve been exposed to. Like Ari Gold in Entourage, parrots know how to play the game. And bald eagle, they are rewarded for it.
(Moms, if you can’t afford a bilingual nanny and are on the waiting list for a dual-language-immersion school, consider buying a Spanish-speaking parrot.)
Sh*tty Mom Recommendation: Move the parrots from the aviary to the reception area, where they can welcome visitors.
LEOPARDS For too long, leopards have coasted on their spots. Do leopards know that Robert Lopshire wrote a book called Put Me in the Zoo, and that the leopard in the book has spots that change colors? Kids run to the leopard area expecting an animal with red, blue, and yellow spots. Being beige and lying around on a flat rock, flexing a paw every now and then, ain’t cutting it.
Sh*tty Mom Recommendation: Move them next to the monkeys.
MONKEYS Monkeys are triple threats: They fly, they swing, and they masturbate. While bears plot new ways to ignore you, monkeys discuss new ways to revolt you. They take classes like “Intro to Picking a Bug Off Another Monkey, Then Eating It” and “Advanced Semen Throwing.” They hoot, make creepy eye contact, and lick their lips salaciously. Monkeys live the life that a sex offender can only dream of.
Sh*tty Mom Recommendation: Double their salary, give them porn, and let the monkey cage stay open until one A.M. on weekends.
GORILLAS Gorillas think they are too good for this gig, and they’re right. Unlike monkeys, gorillas are smart. They are stronger than us and they can maneuver on all fours (at any time, not just on Saturday night). If gorillas and dolphins were to ever join forces, the human race would be eliminated. Don’t count on a Planet of the Apes–like uprising, because real gorillas will not enslave us. They will kill us. Gorillas would love nothing more than to wrap their opposable thumbs around our weak necks and strangle us until we are dead.
By the way, gorillas read the study that claimed orangutans are the smartest apes, and the scientist who wrote it is number one on their to-die list. For our own safety, we should not allow gorillas to watch us. They are taking notes.
Sh*tty Mom Recommendation: Put them behind a one-way mirror.
FEMALE LIONS When kids think “lion,” they think “mane.” It’s sexist and fur-ist, but in today’s world, a bare-necked female lion is boring. It’s extremely disappointing to send your children toward the lion’s den, only to be told that the male lion is “taking the day off but it’s OK, because his substitute, Sandy, a lioness, is more than capable of filling in!”
Oh really, zoo? Then please explain why this conversation is happening:
“That’s the lion, right there. Her name is Sandy.”
“That’s not a lion!”
“Yes it is. That’s a mama lion.”
“That’s not a lion. You’re lying to me.”
“Honey, I’m not ‘lion’ to you.”
“Why are you laughing, Mama? YOU’RE MAKING FUN OF ME I HATE YOU!”
Thanks for this $100 meltdown, zoo. Guess what? This argument can be had for free in the produce section of the grocery store:
“Mama, is that a orange?”
“No, it’s a tangerine.”
“No it’s not, it’s a orange.”
“It looks like AN orange, but actually it’s a different fruit called a tangerine. Now … ‘orange’ you glad I explained that to you?”
“Why are you laughing, Mama? YOU’RE MAKING FUN OF ME I HATE YOU!”
Sh*tty Mom Recommendation: Hate to be sexist against our own, but female lions ought to accept the zoo’s generous buyout offer and retire.
Remember: You can’t go wrong with animals that masturbate.