Invisible Rhinos at the Zoo

Posted on July 14, 2002 in Zoos

I woke up at a quarter to three today. Just before I went to bed last night, I swallowed a heap of pills that included benadryl for my sinuses, tagamet for the aftereffects of eating greasy zoo food, and half a xanax, all known enemies of insomnia. The hours I’d spent chasing my neighbor’s four year old daughter from pen to pen at the San Diego zoo put an odd cramp into my legs: a kind of tingling down the back of the calves, a kind of painful numbness that I think comes from stretching the sinews to the breaking point. I also dosed myself with tylenol, for the pain. When I get the cramps some instinct of the brain tries to relieve them by kicking. The xanax was so I would sleep still and not bruise my wife.

Rowan wanted to see everything. And we would have if I had not lied a little. “The tiger is asleep,” was one of my lies. The truth was I didn’t know, but the Tiger exihit at Tiger River was a notorious spot for nonactivity. Many were the times when I looked in to see, at most, an white rimmed orange triangle that I took to be its ear. So the lie was not a big one. I also did not lead her down Cat Canyon or show her the way to the kiwi. The lies were necessary for the well being of her four escorts: her mother, myself, Lynn, and Rowan’s seventeen year old cousin Sarah.

I love four year olds because they believe in magic. Rowan was certain that there was a “mama” in every cage, that there were no polygamists among the beasts, and that all the baby animals had young sisters and brothers. She had a hard time with the concept that an eight foot tall giraffe was only a baby, but she learned it. Lynn and I seized the chance to tease her a little.

As we stood next to the rhino enclosure — a beast that fascinated her as much as any except the giraffes — I asked her if she thought that he could blow his horn. No came the answer of the child. “Why not?” She hesitated, thought. Had she been caught in an error? Adults knew the answers to these questions and they loved to quiz the young. Perhaps she’s answered it wrong? The long moment passed. She looked at the rhino, studying its form. Then replied: “Because he can’t bring it to his mouth.”

As I led the way, she dashed off to the next enclosure, which held a hippo who was throwing his oversized bath toys around. It was getting dark, we couldn’t see much more than his head, and I was moving fast to squeeze the camels and the koalas in before we all went out to the car. The next enclosure had a sign identifying the inhabitant as a rhino. Rowan asked where it was. I said “It’s an invisible rhino.” She stopped and and applied some simple science. “How come I don’t hear it moving around?” The Empress came to my aid: “He’s wearing fuzzy slippers so he can walk silently.”