A Zoo Visitor's Thoughts

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Thursday, June 28, 2007

There is a moral to this (true) story!

Once upon a time (about three weeks ago) a daddy, a mommy, and a little Girl visited the Animal Kingdom Zoo in Burlington, NJ. They saw llamas, camels, baboons, gibbons, foxes, hyenas, tapirs, muntjac, giraffes, lots of monkeys, and an addax, which is a kind of antelope with long, thin, pointy, spiral horns.

At the Animal Kingdom Zoo, visitors can feed most of the animals, so the animals pay as much attention to the visitors as the visitors do to them. When Daddy, Mommy and Little Girl approached, the addax came right up to the fence. That was when Little Girl stepped behind Daddy.

Daddy, wanting to reassure Little Girl that the addax would not hurt her, said, "Look at the addax, honey!"

Little Girl was already peeking at the addax from behind Daddy's leg.

"Look at his horns, honey!"

Little Girl was already looking at his horns. With great big eyes.

"Look how long and pointy they are!"

Little Girl stepped back one step.

"Aren't his horns wonderful?"

Little Girl stepped back one more step, and said, nothing.

The addax tilted its head back and turned it slightly to the side to poke at an itchy spot on its back.

"Look at that! I wish I had horns like that! I could scratch my back with them!" said Daddy.

Little Girl stepped back three more steps.

"Wouldn't it be nice if Daddy had horns like that?"

Little Girl screamed, "NoooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!" and ran to Mommy, who had moved on to look at camels.

MORAL: When you are trying to calm your small child's fears, you probably should not put images of you with long, spiral, pointy horns into her mind.

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