This article was published in our local paper...too funny!

Love is in the Air and Covered With Hair

It was our yearly outing at Riverbanks Zoo to celebrate our son's birthday, and nothing brings out a child's inquisitive nature quite like a trip to the zoo in the spring time.
"Daddy, what are those two monkeys doing?" my son asked me.
"I'm not sure, son. Want some ice cream?" I replied. I had a pretty good idea what they were doing, and it seemed like a good time to go grab some ice cream.
"Daddy, what are those two bears doing?"
"Nothing, son. How about that ice cream?" They should really run background checks on those bears before they put them out on display for the kids like that.
Apparently the warm days of early spring are a special time for zoo inmates, a time for each animal to do its part to increase the facility's population. Love fills the March air, whether you paid to see it or not.
Almost every animal we visited last Thursday seemed to be in love - the lions, the tigers, even the goats - but I guess there's not much else to do behind bars in between the 9 a.m. feeding and the 4 p.m. show. Even birds of a feather were flocking together, as were a couple of college kids we saw in the Botanical Gardens.
The monkeys' idea of romance involved alternately chasing each other and picking fleas off one another. Apparently nothing kills the mood quicker than a flea on your girlfriend.
Speaking of ruining the mood, I couldn't spend too much time around the elephant exhibit or the rhino cage without developing an inferiority complex.
Despite the cold, the rock penguins were feeling a bit frisky. Are those the penguins that present a pebble to their prospective lover? Hardly seems like a fair deal to me to get by with a cheap rock when men have to cough up diamonds for their mates.
I visited the Galapagos turtle exhibit for a spell, but the springtime entertainment was progressing too slowly for my taste and, besides, I didn't have all day to watch what appeared to be two large rocks kissing.
The hyenas were having fun, judging by all the laughter.
Even the vultures and the alligators appeared to be in the spring spirit. I guess even ugly critters need love, too.
The giraffes were fun to watch, but giraffe love is also a slow process. When I left they were still just necking.
But the animals that exhibited the most human-like mating rituals had to be the gorillas. One gorilla sat on one side of the exhibit, with arms crossed and bottom lip poking out in an angry manner, while the other sat clear across the exhibit pouting in a similar manner.
They were clearly a married couple.
I think the only animals we saw the entire time that didn't seem to be involved in mating activity were the boa constrictors and the pythons. Either they had just eaten too much to move, or they were suffering from a reptile dysfunction.
Maybe it was all that spring fever in the air, but I got to feeling a bit romantic myself as I put my arm around the Mrs. on our way home from Columbia.
"I've got a pebble in my pocket with your name on it, baby," I said smoothly.
"No thanks. How about that ice cream?"