monkeys | piperism

We went to the zoo last weekend. It was a perfect fall day. Sunny. Chilly enough for hot chocolate and donuts. Warm enough to walk around watching the animals and appreciating the changing colors. It was an educational experience for Piper, too. These are the things she learned:

1. Animals poop. A lot.

2. Monkeys have funny butts.

3. Some monkeys have funny boobs, too.

4. Underwater caves have the best views.

5. When animals poop a lot it smells. Bad.

6. If you ask for a really small thing at the gift store, your odds are better than when you ask to take home the life size panda.

7. You’re always the red dot on the map. The red dot follows you. It’s amazing.

8. Elephants lay eggs. Or they like to play with big white balls. Whatever.

9. Elephants poop a lot. It’s big poop. It smells like big poop.

10. Seals fight over the same rock. Even when there are two seals and twenty rocks. It’s a lot like having a Sissy.

When you give Piper a choice of any place she’d like to go in the whole D.C. Metro area, she always picks the zoo. I’ll refrain from jokes about Piper’s own animal behavior. The zoo, it is. Off we went!

Piper’s favorite thing to do at the zoo is to pick out an animal we MUST see, locate that animal, and then the second we are in front of that animal’s cage, announce that she’s ready to see the next animal on her list. She’s not one for gazing or appreciating. For Piper, it’s all about the quest. Next, please. Bamboo eating panda? Seen it. Elephant squirting water on its back? Been there. Lion roaring and pacing in its cage? Done that.

That was, until we were eating our lunch and suddenly the monkeys, technically orangutans, found us. “The monkeys are loose at the zoo!” Piper shouted. She pointed into the trees above our head. She was right. There they were swinging and traveling in their own orangutan style on the O Line.