The family had a big day of animal watching Tuesday. We went to the Atlanta Zoo, and the Georgia Aquarium, and we went to the Atlantic Station shopping area, where there were a lot of LSU football fans walking around.
The big attraction at the zoo continues to be the pandas. We could hardly get into the viewing area because it was packed with people who wanted to catch a glimpse of the new baby panda. It was panda-monium!
(I apologize for that.)
Ling Ling or Ying Yang or whatever her name is didn’t bring the baby out, but they have a camera set up so you could see her dragging the little furball around backstage. At one point she had the baby in her mouth and I said, “Wouldn’t it be cool if she ate it? They do that, you know.”
That earned me a couple of dirty looks from the moms who were nearby. Well, I thought it was funny.
I don’t really get the big whoop about the pandas. I guess they’re cute enough, but so is Lucky, and nobody comes to my backyard to see her. All they do is lie around, eat, and scratch themselves regularly. That’s exactly what Lucky does most of the time. Matter of fact, it’s exactly what I do most weekends.
In truth, most of the zoo animals seem kind of lazy. This is what happens when they have humans supplying all their food. I think it would really spice up the lion exhibit, for example, if they’d throw a wildebeest or gazelle in there once in a while.
Otherwise, there’s just not a lot of animal activity going on in the zoo. I saw a monkey pick something out of another’s butt and eat it. One of the kangaroos actually stood up and I thought maybe he was going to jump or shadowbox or something, but instead he looked right at me and dropped a load. Then he lay back down.
One exception to the lazy animal rule is the tigers. They stalk back and forth in their little enclosure, and every now and then one of them would catch my eye, and I just know he was thinking, “Dude, if I could get out of this cage for five minutes, there’d be nothing left of you but a greasy spot.” I don’t taunt the tigers.
Then it was off to the aquarium. They were having some sort of event for the Chick-fil-A Bowl, so there were a lot of Georgia Tech and LSU fans walking around. The Tech fans are easy to notice, cause their yellow sweaters and sweatshirts smell like mothballs.
The aquarium was about what I thought it would be – lots of fish, swimming in circles. The penguin exhibit was closed, which I found very disappointing. On the brochure they give you when you come in, it actually says “no fishing poles allowed.” I guess that was aimed at the LSU people.
I think I embarrassed my family a little bit when we got to the aquarium. We had pulled into the parking deck, and suddenly we had to stop behind a line of cars for no obvious reason. Then I figured out that some doofus was waiting for somebody to get in their car and pull out so he could get their spot. Keep in mind, on the next level, there were probably a thousand empty spaces.
But this guy was hell-bent on parking in this one spot. So we waited while the people walked to their car, got their kids out of the strollers, loaded everything up, put the kids in the car seats, etc. Meanwhile, there was a backup behind me that extended back out into the street. Finally the space opens up, and the guy, no doubt a Tech fan, pulled into his precious spot.
So as we went past him, and I rolled down my window and asked him, “Sir, are you retarded?” I didn’t hear his answer, but immediately afterward, I felt really bad about it and ashamed of myself, because I realize we’re not supposed to use the word “retarded” any more. If I had it to do over again, I would say, “Sir, are you mildly mentally disabled?”
See, I can be nice when I want to be.
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