One of the people in the world I'd most like to meet is Jeff Corwin, simply because I think he's insane. He makes me laugh. When I was a kid I wanted to be a veterinarian until somewhere around age twelve when I realized that those cute fuzzy things eventually died, and that just clinched it for me.
I’m not a tremendous fan of zoos, but, well, they’re there and I guess they’ve got a purpose. One purpose, of course, is for research and trying to keep certain species from going extinct, and the other purpose is for people like me to go and stare at them. The animals are CUTE, oh yeah. Some of them. Not the snakes. Or spiders. Or other creepy crawly things.
I love all the rodent things. Mouse deer! Elephant shrew! Some of these little guys look a lot like giant hamsters and makes you want to take them home. I actually went to the zoo with Cassie, Vicki, and Craig, fellow TWC interns. We even saw the "happy toad" or something silly like that. At that point in time, I don’t think we were quite on par with the HAPPY part of said toad, because it was supposed to be 72* on Monday but it suddenly clouded over, dropped twenty degrees, and started pouring rain. Yay! We were soaked, but we stayed at the zoo anyway because most of the people left and so we had the place to ourselves.
Rare event in the zoo: the sloth was moving.
Well, Craig and I were told that it was moving by some nice zoo employee person. We stared at it for a good ten minutes and I don’t think it moved more than an inch. So, we went to look at the naked mole rats instead. Now, that was funny. For one thing, they are SO ugly, but their little homes are more like a hive. There is a big queen one, a couple "jack" ones that are the mates, and then lots of baby ones that are just workers. But they’re blind and have giant teeth... and apparently they have no issues with chomping each other right in the butt. Craig and I watched two of them trying to squiggle their ugly little booties down a clear tube from one little house to the next.
The connector tunnel was right up next to the wall where we could see it, and so the first one would start waddling along the pipe... the second one would run up behind it, chomp it in the butt, and drag it backwards. Then, it would do this bizarre leapfrog like move as it squashed the one in front to climb over it. The front runner would then take off in a fast waddle... and the other one would chomp it in the butt and the cycle repeated. There was quite a crowd laughing at these two for quite a while. We couldn’t figure out if they were playing or if they didn’t realize that they weren’t going anywhere!
Forcing yourself to laugh will cause actual glee and merriment! Of course, watching two naked mole rats chomp each other in the butt and play leapfrog makes it even better.
I’m not a tremendous fan of zoos, but, well, they’re there and I guess they’ve got a purpose. One purpose, of course, is for research and trying to keep certain species from going extinct, and the other purpose is for people like me to go and stare at them. The animals are CUTE, oh yeah. Some of them. Not the snakes. Or spiders. Or other creepy crawly things.
I love all the rodent things. Mouse deer! Elephant shrew! Some of these little guys look a lot like giant hamsters and makes you want to take them home. I actually went to the zoo with Cassie, Vicki, and Craig, fellow TWC interns. We even saw the "happy toad" or something silly like that. At that point in time, I don’t think we were quite on par with the HAPPY part of said toad, because it was supposed to be 72* on Monday but it suddenly clouded over, dropped twenty degrees, and started pouring rain. Yay! We were soaked, but we stayed at the zoo anyway because most of the people left and so we had the place to ourselves.
Rare event in the zoo: the sloth was moving.
Well, Craig and I were told that it was moving by some nice zoo employee person. We stared at it for a good ten minutes and I don’t think it moved more than an inch. So, we went to look at the naked mole rats instead. Now, that was funny. For one thing, they are SO ugly, but their little homes are more like a hive. There is a big queen one, a couple "jack" ones that are the mates, and then lots of baby ones that are just workers. But they’re blind and have giant teeth... and apparently they have no issues with chomping each other right in the butt. Craig and I watched two of them trying to squiggle their ugly little booties down a clear tube from one little house to the next.
The connector tunnel was right up next to the wall where we could see it, and so the first one would start waddling along the pipe... the second one would run up behind it, chomp it in the butt, and drag it backwards. Then, it would do this bizarre leapfrog like move as it squashed the one in front to climb over it. The front runner would then take off in a fast waddle... and the other one would chomp it in the butt and the cycle repeated. There was quite a crowd laughing at these two for quite a while. We couldn’t figure out if they were playing or if they didn’t realize that they weren’t going anywhere!
Forcing yourself to laugh will cause actual glee and merriment! Of course, watching two naked mole rats chomp each other in the butt and play leapfrog makes it even better.
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