The expression “don’t shoot the messenger” springs to mind. Nobody should be blaming me for seeing an opportunity and taking it.
I’m a problem-solver, nothing else.
People are always quick to say that when one door closes, another one opens. I’m a door opener of sorts.
The trick that nobody seems to appreciate is that whatever door you go through requires a two-month deposit and a hefty rent. Otherwise, you’re headed out of that door before you know it.
If it feels that I’m putting off explaining exactly what it is that has me feeling a bit of heat from the community, I guess I’m guilty as charged.
It’s just that it sounds much more horrible than it really is.
Or should be anyway.
I know, I’m doing it again.
Let’s be honest, the zoo isn’t what it used to be. With the internet, you can watch videos of whatever animal you want for hours on end from the comfort of your own home. The number of people coming to the zoo had been on a downward trend for the last decade.
Ok, ok… here it is.
It started when one of the groundskeepers needed a temporary place to stay. Let’s call him Jose. We had an empty space, so I offered it to him until he could find a place to live. Real estate prices in the area have gone bananas and I thought I was doing something nice. Really. I didn’t see what was to come.
Then I noticed the number of visitors that seemed to linger outside his enclosure. They seemed fascinated whenever he was inside, just living his life. Soon afterwards, he noted, “I understand the monkeys better now. Sometimes, I want to throw shit at the people gawking at me.”
So, almost as a joke, I put a little sign with HUMAN printed on it inside the empty species information placard out front.
He was a hit.
Traffic increased as word got out.
On the topic of traffic, one day, Jose came up to me out of the blue and said, “I don’t understand three-lane roads. The ones where two lanes go one way but only one lane goes the other. How do they come into existence? What problem could they possibly solve?”
I’m not going to drag this out any longer than necessary; long story short, soon we had a number of people living in the zoo. It was at that point in time that we had to make some difficult decisions.
Do we update the signs to reflect the race and ethnicity of the people living in the enclosure?
We did. Of course we did. The visitors ate it up.
It was like Disney’s It’s a Small World After All, except there were real people living there instead of animatronics.
As an aside, another day Jose came up to me and said, “I don’t want to be a snitch or anything, but late at night, some of the people sneak out of their enclosures and visit people of other races. I thought you should know.”
We started selling out. That had never happened before in the hundred-year history of the zoo. Even when the panda gave birth.
When we opened a new Lifestyles wing, we had to start moving out other animals to make room. Nobody gave a shit about otters or alligators once the Polygamy or Lesbian exhibits opened. People would wait in line for an hour to see our Little People.
What is it they say about people who live in glass houses?
Whatever it is, it should be changed to plexiglass houses because glass breaks too easily.
I remember the day that the last animals were shipped out. The big guys: hippos and elephants and bison. It freed up so much space, we were able to create small villages. The people there were provided room and board with the simple condition that they allowed themselves to be watched 24/7 by the zoo staff and attendees.
Of course there were protests. There always are. They say our zoo is no better than incarceration. But if there wasn’t a demand for this, it would fail on its own, without any need for rude banners and demonstrations blocking the roads.
But there was a demand. A huge demand. And in many cases the inhabitants of the zoo lead far better lives than they would out in the real world. I’ve had many of them tell me that freedom is overrated.
So now across the country, you see people replacing animals in all the major zoos.
Jose came up to me recently with a worried look on his face. He said, “This experiment was supposed to be a safety net… not a bouncy castle.” It was clear he came up with the bouncy castle analogy as he was speaking and it was also clear he was very pleased with it. He looked like a man who wanted to jot something down for posterity.
It’s the letters and emails from the philosophers and sociologists that worry me most. “Why not the prisons?” they ask. “Why not the mental hospitals? The think tanks and the laboratories? Gyms and theaters? Why not bring in the plexiglass for them as well?” These questions concern me because the answer is always “Why not indeed?”
They would drive my zoo out of business. That’s why.
“Zoo: An excellent place to study the habits of human beings.”
-Evan Esar