We got up at the crack of dawn to go to the zoo.  We wanted to rent motorized carts and to do so, we knew that the supply never met the demand.  I tried drinking hot coffee in the car.  My husband already drank his, so he was wide awake. Every turn onto the expressway he took ten miles over the suggested speed. The coffee splashed onto my black pants, nonetheless burning my legs.

I saw a donut shop and mentioned donuts.  We did not get donuts.  Married many years muted my mentions.  We pulled into the zoo parking lot and there was perhaps a half dozen cars there.  I wondered where the employees parked.

We rented the carts.  It would have been easier to rent an airplane.  We showed two forms of identification with photos.  One of mine was dated and I tried to look younger as I looked at the rental person, who was young.  My husband and I practiced driving the carts.

It was just about dawn as we set off.  The carts were like tricycles but had motors like our vacuum. We ran into one another to scan the large map by the path. I was so glad I had thrown my coffee out.  The path took a sharp turn to the left toward the monkey yard.  The monkeys were sleeping on branches on the trees.  My husband turned his cart around.  I tried the same move, but my cart had the turning radius of a garbage truck.  It made a sound like one as well.  This woke up all the monkeys.  Monkeys wake up crabby when startled.  Lucky for me, they were fenced in.

We maneuvered the carts toward the lion exhibit.  The male lion was asleep on a huge log outside. My husband announced “here is the male lion.”  I gave him a look that clearly questioned his intelligence.  He asked me “what?” And he stopped his cart.  I was following behind him and my cart hit his cart.  My cart had been in a series of zoo path accidents and this was just one too many.  My husband’s cart went forward on the path.  Mine did not. I got out of the cart and began to walk the path toward my husband.  The lion woke up and looked at me as I looked at him.  I was in no mood for male dominance.  The lion averted my gaze and went back to sleep.  He was not concerned.  He had a fence.

My husband made a u-turn and i followed him back to my cart.  He did some magic profanity and when i got back onto my cart and turned the key the engine started up with a renewed noise. We launched off toward the outdoor bird exhibit.  I was very talkative and my husband and i sat on our carts and looked at the birds that were in the shade as far away as they could be from humans.  I had my elbow up on a flat rock near the fence of the bird exhibit.  I felt something big bite my elbow.  I was startled.  It was an ostrich.  “ouch!  You bit me!”  I said as if it meant something to that bird.  I rubbed my sore elbow and looked at the bird in its eyes.  It stepped away, as though totally innocent. I felt my elbow and it was not showing a mark.  We moved on down the path to the bears who were outside and also inside.  The ones outside were sleeping in the sun.  I felt sleepy watching them. I knew that they were dangerous and would not like company as i imagined sleeping by their big bodies of soft fur, warmed by the sun.  I used to lay down by our big dog in the sun on the carpet in the family room.  The path made another sharp turn and my cart’s engine protested the turn with a blaring chernobyl siren.  Both bears woke up.  One got up, ready to rumble.  “hurry” i told my husband.  More people were coming in to the zoo.  They liked to see the animals awake, so they followed us.  I asked the man closest to me to open the door to the next exhibit.  I did not look to see what it was.  It was the reptile house.  It had a pit with water and alligators, and a large glassed in cage with a very large snake inside.  My husband does not like living snakes, nor alligators.

My cart made too much noise inside that exhibit.  We headed to the exit.  My husband got off his cart, opened the door,  and let me exit.  I did.  I got off my noisy machine and held the door open for him to exit. He did.  I let the door go and it swung shut heavily, hitting my ankle.

That left a mark for two weeks.

We came to the cafeteria.  I was hungry, but knew my wishes were no longer his commands.  It was too early for lunch, anyway.  “we’ll eat on the way home.” He said.  It was cloudy and people were coming in to the zoo with small children in wagons and babies in strollers.  It started to rain with those big drops that mean business when they hit you on the head.

I wondered why they still came in to the zoo.  Then i saw the color of their passes and knew that they had paid dearly for them.  They gripped the hands of their toddlers and headed in to the polar bear exhibit.  It was not going to be fun, however their little susie and timmy were going to see a polar bear, in a monsoon or not.

As we got into our car in the parking lot we saw a school bus full of children. Both of us had been teachers and we could see the mayhem inside the bus.  At least the kids were still dry. The teacher was talking earnestly to the bus driver, promising him everything and intending to give him nothing but a brownie from the cafeteria whenever they returned.