Taking the Outlaws to the Zoo
 

I don’t know if you ever taken older people to a very public place. If you have, then you may commiserate. If you haven’t . . . well, you have an experience to look forward to.

My wife likes to have her parents down to our place several times a year. They are 87 & 80. One is reasonably mobile (fil) & one is barely (mil). Through complex ongoing negotiation & with typical family infighting, they live in a basement apartment in the boonies of rural Ontario with my wife’s sister. The biggest downside is the 1 hour drive to a major hospital. Our proximity to a good Euro bakery & a decent Hungarian deli (well, actually Romanian but they carry a lot of Hungarian stuff too) is nice. We stuff them full of healthy food: smoked bacon (fil just dives in with his trusty Swiss Army knife), head cheese & salami & hot peppers & lots & lots of pork. Emiril says “pork fat rules” but he is an amateur pork aficionado compared to a Hungarian peasant. But that’s more than enough background to set the stage.

I guess I mentioned they are Hungarian? Well, one of the classic symptoms of older folks is a regression to youth. They often lucidly remember an event 60 years ago but can’t remember what they ate for lunch. Well, this applies to language too. They now speak Hungarian fluently, Hunglish pretty well but English very poorly. Couple that with a hearing problem with fil & communication gets interesting.

Oh yeah. The Zoo. As entertainment, my wife thought that they would get a kick out of a visit to the Toronto Zoo. So this was planned & today was chosen as the plan execution day.

But let me ask you. Have you ever been to a zoo when it wasn’t a friggin’ zoo? Well, me neither. As we pulled into the parking lot at 10:45, I had a sinking feeling of helplessness. There were 10 million cars. At 10:45. WTF?

OK. Here’s a pointer for you. If you are ever going to a zoo, do a serious investigation before you go. Is it Family Day? This means strollers. Everywhere. Screaming, snot-nosed children. Everywhere. Very annoying parents. The ignoring kind. The pleading kind. The reasoning kind. The screaming kind. And that’s the parents.

Well, Family Day was last July when my wife thought it would be fun for just her & I to go. It wasn’t. This Sunday it was Teacher’s Day, whatever that means. I guess they & their families got a hefty discount. And they came. In droves. Every teacher for 1,000 miles around. They probably spent $75 in gas to save $23 in zoo admission.

Well, I made an observation & this is bankable. You can trust me on this: teacher’s kids are just as obnoxious & every bit as annoying as your kids. Not yours of course but the royal ‘your’.

And the zoo? All of the animals appear to be on holidays. As in invisible. Possibly extinct. Enclosure after enclosure was a dud. I got sick of pointing out a patch of fur of an animal hiding distantly in a tree. The elephants were neither inside or outside. The orangs were sleeping under blankets. They are usually the hit of a visit, but nada. Ditto the tigers - it looked like somebody shot them. The gorillas were barely moving (and not even picking their butts) & the lions were only visible from a wheelchair inaccessible spot. The biggest hit was feeding the seagulls at the abysmal hamburger spot. I know, I know we shouldn’t feed the gulls but the kids (I mean old people) love it.

I could go on & on. Ever pushed a grown man uphill in a wheelchair against the flow of urban parents with $500 mega-strollers? Ever tried to compete with said parents for a view of a distant animal? It’s brutal warfare out there.

Ian

PS It was a good day however because THEY enjoyed it. :)

Wow, that sucks! We were there just a few weeks ago and had a completely different experience. Now mind you, our daughter is very well behaved - rambunctious and energetic, but not whiny, pushy or cranky, so we don't get frustrated, tired, etc. We went with a few friends and their kids (ages 2-6, with one 12 year old) and I was really impressed at how well behaved they all were. We certainly saw plenty of angry and/or bribing parents and spoiled snotty kids, but they didn't really spoil the day. And the animals were all out - the elephants were walking all around, the giraffes came right up to the fence, and one of the guys we were with even got to see one of the monkeys jerking off :D

Heh... I know what you mean about the languages. Grandma spoke 9, and when she had a stroke, she insisted that the hospital staff find someone she could speak french with. She just didn't remember if she could speak it, adn wanted to make sure...

Ian, what was the temperature the day you went? It has been my experience that the cooler it is, the more active the animals are.

Ian,
Your father and mother in law sound just like my Grandma. I am half hungarian, and you explaining the background sounded just like her.

Your good man Ian.

Ian,
one day you will be old,
rest assured your 'princess' will take you to Zoo during feeding time..
why are your standing inside the Lion pit..payback for being a 'meanie'
during their extended stay.

Rika

Reminds me of that song by the Dead Milkmen

That's karma points there Ian - good for you!

Yeah, as I was pushing the wheelchair around I couldn't help thinking that one day I'll WISH somebody would push my wheelchair around a zoo.

Btw it was really cheap too. Adults are normally $20. Seniors are normally $14. But . . . because the seniors were in wheelchairs, they were 1/2 price = $7 each. And because my wife & I were pushing wheelchairs, we got in FREE.

And the animals weren't hiding because of heat since it was only high 60's.

Ian

Oh & I guess I should mention the bonus & the past memories & the need to share them.

Fil always tells me war tales. He was conscripted into the Hungarian Army in 1942. Yesterday, he told me how his brother died in the Ukraine in 1943 - in detail - an accident with a landmine it seems - but a story no one had heard before. He also had tales of Russian POW camps since he wasn't released until May 1948. He said he only had a full stomach 2 times in 3 years. The first involved a rotten cabbage & 3 months in a hospital. A work horse 'accidentally' killed by a tree they were cutting down was the second. He kept ending every tale with: "But I'm still here . . ."

Ian