Email
PrintWhat a zoo
The volume of noise the humans were making while waiting for a glimpse of the pachyderms was amazing. It was like being on the 50-yard line at the Shoe during the Michigan game.
As if stirring up a hornet’s nest in The Other Paper, where I write a music column, over ComFest’s recent explosive and unfettered growth hasn’t been enough, this piece could make that battle look like a Sunday school picnic.
You see, I’m about to say some not-so-nice things about the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium, which, as we all know, has been named the best of its kind in the country and is a beloved institution in these parts.
The reason I bring this up is because I’m thinking that I’d rather go to a zoo of another type this month than to the one in Powell. I’m talking about the Ohio State Fair, which is like a huge cage filled with exotic humans.
But, first, let me establish my bona fides as a lover of Jack Hanna Land. When I found myself newly single in the early 1990s, I started an Indian summer tradition of motoring along scenic Riverside Drive to spend a leisurely afternoon from work hanging with the lions and tigers and bears and especially the reptiles. Ah, yes, eyeball to hooded eyeball with the cobras. Quality face time with my venomous friends.
Awesome.
I’m not sure when I stopped making this pleasant pilgrimage. It obviously was before the zoo became a cross between Cedar Point and Grand Central Station. My return visit on a weekday last August was as crowded and uncomfortable as any Friday night at ComFest, which, in turn, I’ve described as feeding time at the zoo. Hmm.
I guess the zoo has been recalibrated in my absence and designed to appease those younger than 10 years of age and shorter than 36 inches. We’re talking about nonstop screaming of little kids high on sugar and the buzz from playing at the zoo’s Zoombezi Bay water park.
Perhaps I missed the coupon that proclaimed my day to visit as Screaming 3- to 6-Year-Olds-Get-In-Free Day, which coincided with Blow-Your-Diet-At-The-Zoo Day as folks who should have known better walked around with armloads of fast food, stuffing their faces like it was . . . feeding time at the zoo.
The zoo once represented a pleasant escape from the urban and suburban jungles of stress we all inhabit. But have you tried to meditate on a still-as-death tree snake lately there? Or ponder silently what any of our simian friends are thinking as they stare at us staring at them? I’ll tell you what they’re thinking: Glad those screaming kids are on your side of the glass.
Now let’s deal with the Disneyfication of the place, which, of course, is why there are thousands of screaming kids there in the first place (as well as the media hype about the manatees, rare tigers and the like). Is a water park and innumerable fast food concessions necessary to understand animals? Heck no, but apparently they’re necessary if you want to finance the operation. Or so we’ve been sold.
The whole thing of gigantic families pushing children screaming gigantically was enough to make me never want to go again. Maybe I’ll return if it ever institutes an adults-only day.
One last story: The absolute worst moment on my visit was the elephant exhibit, the one with the then newborn. As I stood in a 90-yard-long line to see the baby elephant, I found myself deeply impressed by the dignity of the mama. She seemed to be taking junior’s hyperactivity in stride and I admired her for it.
But the volume of noise the humans were making while waiting for a glimpse of the pachyderms was amazing. It was like being on the 50-yard line at the Shoe during the Michigan game. I began to get agoraphobic.
As I rushed outside to gulp fresh air, I decided I’d had enough. These damn animals weren’t worth it. And I wasn’t thinking about the four-legged kind.
