Zoo

"Good afternoon.

I went to the zoo with my dear friend Sarah yesterday. I had not been to the zoo in years and years. I think I was 9 or 10 the last time that I went. Boy, have I been missing out all of these years. One highlight was the parakeet palace place. There were 500 parakeets just flying around all willy nilly and we were allowed to go in with these little sticks that had bird seed attached. The birds would instinctively flock to us like the salmon of Capistrano! There would be several on the stick, nibbling away and they would crawl on your hands and on your shoulders and everything. I was like a kid in a candy store, or a bird in a seed shop, if you will.

There was an intern there named Alan who was a bevy of information on parakeets. While enlightening us on the various wonders of being a parakeet, he looked off across the way, in the midst of 500 zooming and darting birds, and says, 'Oh. Over there is my favorite one. His name is 'Hypotenuse.' At that moment, with an outstretched arm, bird seed in hand, he shouts, 'HYPOTENUSE!'. And wouldn't you know it, the bird immediately came over to him.

That, right there, was worth the price of admission.

Going to a zoo is an amazing thing. You see these animals and you think, 'What kind of a world is this? What on earth are we doing with these giant turtles walking around?' It really does make you think that this is a wild, wonderful place after all."

Another good story. By Jason Tatum.