Went on down to the National Zoo

This past weekend, we made a trip down to D.C. to the National Zoo. Bogdan has been wanting to go for a while now, and since the weather was beautiful and it was the day after his bday (or "birthday week" as he called it, which has been noted and will be fully exploited by yours truly next year) we decided to go.

We were walking up to the entrance and Bogdan said, "I know you don't like zoos, but..."

I interrupted him. "Wha? Excuse me?"

"You don't like zoos."

"Who told you that? Did I say that?"

Then, 15 minutes in on our tour of the zoo, I concluded, "I don't like zoos."

This has happened before, by the way. The whole being reminded about some random declaration of distaste I apparently made in the past but having no recollection of having ever said that...aloud. For example, my friend Candice once wrote to me about an idea for a beach trip in which she said, "I know you don't like sand, but the beach is..."

What?

I don't like sand?

Well, I really don't like sand, when I come to think about it. It gets stuck in places and never ever goes away. But how did she know that? And why, oh why, did I ever make the point to tell someone that?

Back to the zoo. We had the let down of standing in front of the sloth bear exhibit for a few minutes, wandering around looking in at all angles and not ever seeing him. Sloth. Then we saw some elephants, which was cool and all, they were even doing tricks, but something about it was...just...sad? The final nail in the "I don't like zoos and you can hang a sign about it on my door" was when we entered the ape house. The rancid ape smell was emanating from the doors before we even opened them, and then, after standing inside watching an ape eat an Amazon.com box for a while and realizing I no longer noticed the smell and hoping to all that is good that I hadn't somehow allowed the smell to seep into my clothing and hair...well, this is when it solidified.

So there, I don't like zoos.

I don't hate zoos. And I actually remember really enjoying the Audubon Zoo in New Orleans. But if you gave me a choice, I'd go to the aquarium.