The Best Animal in the Zoo

Mirrored from my xanga site, here. It has pictures which I would put here if I could figure out how to do that, or change the banner, design, etc... I suck


“Do we have to go Mama? The zoo's boring,” my daughter whined when I informed her of our plans for the day.

“It'll be fun,” I told her remembering a trip to the zoo with my mom and friends, Madonna and Michael Jackson serenading the animals with the boom box we carried.

They went grudgingly, entirely too cool for our bunch. Until they discovered the best animal at the zoo, pre-teen boys.

"That boy back there liked us Mama! His Mama was saying that was a red fox and he went on and on about how it was half panda or something, trying to impress us. And he looked right at me."

"I think he was looking at me," her friend replied. "And he keeps flinging his hair. JUST LIKE JESSE."

"He's sooooooooooo cute," they squealed.

"I'm sure he thought all of you were cute," I told them, hoping they'd hush, for just a moment.

I searched with my eyes around the scores of strollers clogging the walkway for little boys. I'd taken to counting them out 1 through 9 at least 60 times an hour after finding the 13 year old, brother of squealing girl three, chasing the peacock that roams free throughout the zoo and trying to climb in the elephant's enclosure.

"Stay by me. No running ahead. Find your buddy," I hollered until my voice was hoarse.

"Where'd he go?" The girls asked, having lost track of their prey while relating his every perfectly divine quality to me.

And like animals stampeding, they followed.

"Boys don't like to be chased," I called after them, thinking about my own pre-teen boy and his pre-teen friends. They are more horrified by girl's stares than anything else.

But considering, that in the 7th grade, my 12 year old stalker in the making self, forced my mother to drive by Bryan Mitchell's house at least once a day and cried copious tears and listened to Aerosmith's Angel 750 times when he didn't even speak to me at the Valentine's Dance, I didn't have much room to talk.

So I let them lead the way. At the next exhibit, they jostled one another around, vying for the coveted spot next to him in front of the boa constrictor. By the fifth exhibit, he'd blocked himself between his parents, ignoring them with a look of abject horror in his eyes.

“I think he might be cuter than Chase,” one of the girl's said. Chase being the A list boy, at their school, since THIRD grade. “And maybe even Jesse.” Jesse McCartney, who is the CUTEST famous person EVER, at least according to them.

“No one's cuter than Chase or Jesse,” Georgie mulled. “He can be number three. We need to make up a name for him.”

“How about Jeff,” one of the girls suggested.

“My first boyfriend was named Jeff,” I informed them, trying to hear over the boys bird calls.

“Make that Josh,” my daughter replied.

Two hours later, squeezed together in the zoo's train seat, I snapped a picture for them to fawn over. Hustling everyone to the car as soon as it was over.

They positioned themselves at the windows, rolling them down and hanging out as far as I would allow, the perfect music blasting from the radio.

“Bye cute tall boy with the blond hair,” one of them screeched as they all waved, flinging themselves back inside in a fit of giggles.

“His hair was brown dummy,” a voice chided. And I smiled.

“Mama, that was the best zoo trip EVER.”