A Monstrous Ingrown Hair

Posted on September 5, 2002 in Photos Zoos

Men in some cultures take one look at a rhino’s horn and think they’ve found the cure for creeping impotence. That thing at the tip of the snout is nothing more than a gigantic hair covered with the same stuff that you have in your fingernails. So if you still think the stuff is your panacea: save your freaking fingernail clippings, save a species!

Click on the picture

I took some of these pictures on the afternoon when we went to the zoo with Jodie. The fellow with the horn that looks like it could have played a part in the attack on the World Trade Center kept staring at us. John and I debated whether it was him or me that the rhino loathed. I conducted a test: I walked down the walk, mindful of the direction the old brute was pointing his rear end — his most deadly part when they’ve set a moat between you and the behemoth. He ignored me. When John moved, the rhino followed him with his beady little eyes. “He hates me,” John insisted. “I wonder why?” “Probably doesn’t like your shirt,” I shrugged, feeling a little jealous that the shorter, quieter man seemed more a threat than tall, manic me.

After I post the pictures, I show them to Lynn. “What do you think?” I ask her. She muses in a voice she polishes to sound like a squeaking door “I like the rhinos.” “Lynn, they’re all rhinos….”