Penguins

I have a thing for zoos.  I’m not sure if it’s because I went to too few as a child, or too many.  Whichever the case, it expresses itself through a love of them.  Though I have yet to visit the zoo in Paris, I have visited Simba’s Safari in Sao Paulo, where an uppity emu tried to eat me.  After such an exciting previous visit to the zoo, I was ready in January, when I had a five hour layover in New York.  Within an hour of touch down I was in the Central Park Zoo, carry-on in tow.  I’d run across the park from the Natural History Museum, avoiding the frozen patches, skirting the perimeter of a police line, and finally skidding into line 20 minutes before the zoo closed. 

“You don’t get a discount if you enter now… and you don’t get a refund if you don’t get to see everything.”  The lady who said this wasn’t the nicest person I’d ever met.  She growled it.  And I handed her my money.  I skipped away.  Honestly.  Ticket in hand.

I wanted, no needed to see the penguins.  I hadn’t seen them.  The zoos I’d been to were focused more on giraffes and elephants.  But, I was immediately distracted by the sea lions.  They did tricks and looked for attention.  They would come up out of the water and wave.  They’d go under and twist.  They splashed us, asking for fish in their own way. 

Look at me!

Distraction passed, I ran to the penguin house.  It was dark.  It smelled bad.  But there were so many penguins.  They swarmed everywhere.  They stood frozen, it seemed.  They swam.  They preened and honked.  They were everything I had ever imagined, though separated by a disconcerting amount of glass.  

Miniature penguin!

I was the most excited child in the room, far surpassing the little French kids babbling away.  My “take a picture” cry was just as loud as any four year old's and my disappointment at not being to pet the dear creatures was just as strong.