In her attempt to find something interesting to do over the holidays besides count the shopping days until Easter, this past winter my friend Liz (Elizabeth Ruth, for short) suggested that we visit the zoo. I assumed she was saddened by the simple fact that she had not seen an animal relieve itself in public in many days, so out of empathy, I agreed to go. Also, she is a girl, which means that she probably could have gotten me to agree to drink a glass of cleaning fluid.
Since Elizabeth and I both live in New York, which recently overtook Fort Lauderdale as the Animals Relieving Themselves In Public capital of the world, we decided to head to the Bronx, a borough of New York City which is second only to New Jersey in overall number of dirty things. As luck would have it, there turned out to be some type of world-famous zoo there, as well! Unfortunately, due to our tightly-packed schedules, which included me sleeping until 3 p.m., we found it hard to make it to the zoo during normal animals-relieving-themselves hours.
Too often -- about every 15 minutes or so, according to some reports -- we humans whimsically decide to NOT go to the zoo after it is supposed to be closed for the night. Well, Elizabeth and I were visionaries; we saw an ad in the paper that said the zoo was open at night, so we headed out to see the animals. (Pronounced: AM-in-uls).
When we arrived at our destination we discovered that, yes, the zoo was in fact open at night. We boldly, yet insightfully, dubbed the location "Nightzoo." The main difference between Nightzoo and the standard day zoo is that at night only one quarter of the animals are on display (the other three-fourths are apparently hiding), and zoo visitors are charged two dollars extra to walk along a path and view a series of "holiday" lights, not to mention two dollars more to park. Paying only thirteen dollars to see lights -- what an unforeseen wealth of good fortune! We felt like the "Baby Jessica Rescued From The Well" of zoo visitors.
The lights were arranged in such a way as to look like various mammals and birds, but if viewed from the correct angle, they largely resembled a bunch of glowing objects haphazardly strung up on trees at a zoo. As if someone saw those same trees during the day, and thought, "There aren't nearly enough glowing objects up there."
Some of the more interesting light sculptures at Nightzoo included:
-- A bird who was pecking at something that, to the untrained eye, looked like a deflated punching bag.
-- Some apparently seafaring object with a rattlesnake's tail; Elizabeth noted it may have been the Loch Ness Monster's illegitimate younger brother, "Billy."
-- A set of reddish-pink flamingos. We had no guess as to what these flamingos were doing at the zoo and not on some influential Italian person's lawn.
-- And much, much more.
Luckily for us, one exhibit that remained open in spite of the dangerous lack of sunlight was the house of reptiles, a set of animals whose main attractive feature is that there is usually a large pane of glass between it and me. We also had the privilege of getting to see a couple of elephants in action, doing just what it is that elephants do, which is about as much as large rocks being pulled around on carts.
Upon exiting the indoor elephant exhibit, Elizabeth and I noticed a group of people crowded around six or seven reindeer, disproving my theory that reindeer don't exist. The reindeer seemed to be using their limited time away from the North Pole very productively, engaged simultaneously in the activity of lying there and looking pissed. What cohesion on the part of the reindeer!
I asked Elizabeth if reindeer could really fly, to which she responded, "Why, naturally." Then I asked her if they could fly from the seated position, because, frankly, they didn't look like they were getting up any time soon. "Even from the seated position," she assured me. So I kept a curiously watchful eye on our friends, expecting at any moment for one of them to chew through its rope and hurtle instantaneously toward the stratosphere. Unfortunately, none of them moved. It was weeks later that I discovered Elizabeth was kidding.
After a few hours of viewing what may well have been the most unusual light show the Bronx will ever see, Elizabeth and I decided unanimously that the zoo still makes for a much better trip during the day, when most of the aminuls (pronounced: AM-in-uls) are out. Granted, there is the off chance that if you go during the day you will be attacked and eaten by bison, but for the two dollars you save over Nightzoo, I would say it is worth the risk.
