Di and I bought each other a zoo pass for one another’s birthdays (okay, so Di got her present a few months early) and so we can now go to the zoo every day for free for the next year. Which is unlikely, but since it costs $25 for us to go for a day, and $90 for us to go for a year, and we live right beside it (essentially), it seemed a good idea.

We decided to go up there and see the new gorilla named “Yakini” since it was apparently quite cute to look at. There is only one reason to go to the zoo on a Sunday, and that is not to enjoy the place. No. The only reason to go is if you are looking for SPOTD adventures. There were a couple of SPOTD candidates in five minutes at one stage, but I decided to not bother too much trying to find other candidates since I knew I already had a winner from the first entrant.

The runner-up SPOTD award went to the man who walked up to the enclosure for the Red Panda. This enclosure is basically a small concrete fence around an area containing various logs, rocks and plants for the Red Pandas to explore. It is placed in an area where there are paths all the way around the enclosure, then some open lawn and garden beds beyond the paths.

Each enclosure has a sign saying what animal is in it, a map of where it usually lives (eg: South East Asia), as well as some brief details (eg: gestation period of four months, eats only rancid meat, male is smaller than female). Walking up to the sign, he read aloud “Red Panda”. Turning to his wife, he loudly pronounced “Hmm.. Must be in there.”, pointing to the enclosure that the sign was within.

No? Really? You mean it’s not OUTSIDE the enclosure, over getting ice-cream from the stall vendor? Duh. Of course it is in the bloody enclosure!

However, we found this guy second, and he’d already lost to the person we’d encountered a few minutes previous. We were standing in front of one of the enclosures, looking at the animals within, and the fellow strolled up and announced to his lady companion “Hey! Here’s the gorillas! See? I told you they were around here somewhere! They are gorillas, aren’t they?”

We had to agree with him. They were certainly gorillas alright. Well, they would have been if gorillas had grey skin, were really big and, oh, had trunks and tusks. Yes - they were elephants…

SPOTD winner? You bet.

Categories: SPOTD