What We Need

An entry from C’s writing journal at school….

….Tomoroow we are going to the zoo. Tomoroow is my lucy day. My shaporon is coming. I think I will see a lion…

Translation - “…tomorrow is my lucky day. My chaperone is coming….”

Awwww, shucks. That “shaporon” he’s talking about is me. I have the sweetest boy in the world.

     I recently accompanied C’s class on a field trip to the zoo, despite my general discomfort at animals kept in cages. He loves animals, but the zoo is a place that doesn’t hold his interest for long as so often the animals are too far away to really see, are inactive, or they just aren’t doing anything particularly interesting. C is a man of action and he expects the animals to be the same way. This time, the baboons didn’t disappoint. There’s a spot where human and baboon can nearly touch each other save a pane of thick glass for which I became very thankful. Face to face they stood and I was forced to wonder who was watching whom in this interaction. C put his hand up on the glass and the baboon went nuts. Slapping at C’s hand as if he could move it, retreating and then attacking C by slamming against him on the glass, and baring his teeth at C as if he had completely invaded his space. Screaming with delight and laughter, the children continued to watch as C moved his hand up and down the glass as the baboon kept hitting at him. I had to pry him away despite my fascination with the entire episode.

     Why C? I wondered. There were ten other kids, all dressed in the same class t-shirt, standing right there. Yet the baboon locked his eyes on C and did not back down until I dragged C away from the glass. I like to think C has a special connection to animals, but I’ve never seen it play out in this somewhat frightening way before. I am a firm believer in evolution and genetics, so I don’t consider it an insult to think that perhaps the baboon recognized a kindred soul and wondered why they were on different sides of the glass. Alas, I’m probably giving way too much self-awareness to the baboon, but the entire episode was beyond odd to me.

     As I pondered the strangeness of the event and we walked away from the exhibit, C summed it up quite well. “Those bamboos were kind of scary, weren’t they, Momma?”