Jess and I decided to take off work Monday. Instead, we went to the zoo, a top priority on our list of things to do this summer. The zoo parking lot was all but empty when we arrived, and to our amazement, we drove right up to the front and found a nice parking spot in ORANGUTAN ROW 1. The sun’s power had increased considerably in the twenty minutes it took to get from our house to the zoo. Halfway to the zoo entrance, I became disappointed in my decision back home to forgo sunscreen. I could already feel my neck turning the tender color of raw calamari.

Inside the zoo, near where a bearded employee handled an armadillo before a gathering of moms and screechy kids, we went over the zoo map I had snagged from the ticket booth. The layout of the place appeared to run in one big loop. The animals were sorted by continent. Nonetheless, all the ”continents” we visited maintained the same steady sweltering climate of the Sahara desert. I feared my body would eventually run out of sweat.

North America was our first destination. I figured this part of the zoo would be nothing short of taking a leisurely stroll through my backyard. I was partially right. Three steps deep inside the Western Hemisphere, I caught a dreadful odor that rivaled that of our garage trashcan the day after I threw away the dead mouse we’d caught in our basement. Nonetheless, we pressed on.

Just off the walking path, a sign called our attention to a low patch of weeds. It informed us that black ants were in there. I strained my eyes but could not make out even one anthill, not even an ant. Slightly puzzled, Jess and I never arrived at a solid conclusion over the ants’ whereabouts. The best I can come up with is that they probably filed their way to the nearest overflowing trashcan and got tangled up in a swath of cotton candy. To be honest, as long as they didn’t end up in my pants or something, I was fine with not knowing their mysterious location. By the time Jess had me posing for a snapshot with a tired old goat with stubs for ears, the ants had left my mind.       

Counting the invisible ants, there must have been a million animals in the zoo. Many seemed immobilized by the noonday heat, either slumped in a shady corner or sprawled out inside a hollow tree trunk. Some animals came off as rather pedestrian, like the mallards, that swam and quacked like the ones back home, but some were worth noting, namely the penguins.

Heavily influenced by Coca-Cola commercials, I have always pegged penguins for snow birds. These particular ones, however, were out and about in the sizzling sun. Not to be mean, but the poor birds looked diseased, as if they constituted a sort of bird leper colony. Instead of donning their usual tuxedo coats, the penguins hobbled out in something more like a dung colored blazer with the stuffing coming out. They were losing their feathers in clumps. What feathers remained mashed into a chaotic mess, looking as if the zoo staff had taken to cooling them off with fire hoses.    

It occurred to me that the penguins might be contagious. As I considered how life might be like living in quarantine, I read up on the penguin facts posted outside their habitat.  Apparently they make nests out of mounds of seabird guano, aka, bird poop. I wanted out. Though not totally undone of my suspicion, I was put partially at ease when I overheard a lady in a zoo polo shirt explaining to an equally uneasy observer that this is molting season.

So maybe they weren’t diseased. But it was an image I knew would stay with me for a long time. I’ve heard of molting, but never witnessed it first hand. I learned a lot from my visit to the zoo. Although it has its plusses, Nature can be very ugly at times. Especially during molting season.

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