Over a distance, a forced grunt carried on the wind. A small boy, just on the verge of leaving the toddler years, pulled his grandparents toward the sound. Excitement and wonder emblazoned on his face as he rounded the corner and entered my line of sight. I saw him and smiled. I knew this was coming, the tourists always come flocking to the very audible grunts issuing from a large centrally located pen. Some well traveled patrons, perhaps they have been to enough zoos to have heard this noise before or perhaps they have seen the many videos circulating on the internet, start to slowly shuffle on to other exhibits.
“Look Grammy! They are playing wrestle!”
The startled grandma’s eyebrows began to crawl up her forehead as her mouth hung open, lost for words. Grandpa chuckled. Baffled on how to explain why a tortoise the size of an overturned wheel barrow was vigorously thrusting and explosively grunting while on top of a tortoise of similar size, they graciously accepted the “wrestling” illusion. While standing aside from this spectacle, usually stooped to pick up the large and surprisingly pungent turds left behind from these horn dogs, I tried not to make eye contact with the visitors. As much as I do love to talk about sex in the animal kingdom to anyone who will listen, I rarely had time to engage in it the way I would have liked. If you are going to ask me a question that widespread society deems embarrassing, you had better be prepared to leave with a little flush to your face because I take great pride in my abilities to embarrass, especially in public.
More often than not, the modest folks who hid behind the lies (these are designed to be palatable and thus ease the guilt of possibly contributing to their children smoking pot, naked in some patch of undeveloped wood at an earlier age then college) had their illusions shattered by the progressive family that decided to take up residence at the bare patch of fence within ear shot. According to the modest, if you don’t talk about sex, it won’t happen! Imagine their discomfort when the children mere feet away were receiving a NFL style play by play commentary.
“That is the penis, oh look, it is kinda like a human penis! See how he is putting it in the girl? That is how he puts sperm in her and the sperm fertilizes the eggs. Then she lays the eggs in a nest and protects them until they hatch into baby turtles!”
The mom was so excited at witnessing this magical act of life and so damned proud of her brazen explanation of it. Look at those little yuppie children, eyes a glow, as if they could imagine the babies hatching out right before their eyes and scurrying around, miniatures of the adults. Her explanation would have been good, except that they are tortoises, not turtles. Yes, there is a difference and…
“When will the babies hatch?”
The children let out excited gasps, perhaps hoping for a date that they could return and witness the saga.
“They won’t.”
A crushing blow. Excitement and pride was quickly replaced with anger.
“You crush the eggs don’t you? So you won’t have anymore.”
Educating the public on the cruel realities of the world, of life, is truly my calling and indeed my passion. No matter if the facts are vibrant and wonderful or grim and depressing, it is information. Humanity can only benefit when they open their mind to receive more information about the world around them. Or at least that is how I justify the thrill of delivering potentially “bad” news.
“No ma’am. We don’t crush the eggs, in fact you can see some babies in our show! These in here… are all males.”
Swinging Karma 