Last Sunday I visited the Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium in Omaha, Nebraska. It was all kinds of awesome. I love a good zoo and this my friends, was a good zoo. Except for the part where Captain Thoughtful and I were almost murdered by a gorilla.
You know those glass bubble thingamagigs they have at zoos where you can kind of feel like you’re in the habitat with the animals but you are still protected by reinforced plastic? I call them bubble windows and I’ve always thought they were pretty neat. I don’t anymore. Now, I think they are an excellent way to get murdered by a Gorilla. Which, as deaths go, sounds pretty cool but probably hurts a lot, although it still better than being murdered by an armadillo.
Captain Thoughtful and I were sitting in one of those bubble windows looking right into the eyes of a giant and beautiful silverback gorilla. I tried to communicate with him through positive and calm vibes. Surely, this majestic creature could tell that I was very appreciative of his strength and grace and that I only wanted to sit and watch him for a while. Perhaps though, gorillas don’t communicate through vibes because not more than 2 seconds later he stood to his full height and started banging with all his strength (which is a lot) on the bubble window right where our heads were. I didn’t make a noise, I just jumped up and walked away quickly leaving Captain Thoughtful to fend for himself against and a very perturbed gorilla. Maybe I’m not the person you want standing next to you in a gorilla attack.
Of course, we were completely safe. Really, truly, nothing to fear, kind of safe. But when a massive gorilla is making every attempt to crush your skull with his fist, you kind of forget about how “safe” you are and more about how quickly you need to get away from that super angry gorilla who clearly has murder on his mind. Captain Thoughtful was totally cool about it though, he just sat there calmly and watched the gorilla walk away, which was impressive, but even more impressive was that he let me tell a bunch of people that a gorilla tried to murder us at the zoo without even correcting me or implying that I might be over-exaggerating. That guy is a keeper y’all.
Later, after my heart resumed it’s normal rhythms (it beats in time to the Bee Gees “Staying Alive”) I was able to disassociate myself from what happened enough to realize that the gorilla probably just needed anger management classes.
