Fact: the zoo is fun...

There is a good reason a zoo is full of cages and today I discovered this reason.

A zoo puts animals in cages, not to protect people, but to protect the animals from morons. I witnessed a complete lack of common sense today that proved the reason for cages. A dumbass tried to give an orangutan a grape soda and a fist bump.

I want to take this opportunity to point out that printed directly on the map you get at the gate is a disclaimer. Please do not feed the animals. The animals are on special diets and different foods can make them sick. Please do not touch the animals. This is for your safety and the safety of the animals. I did not see anywhere on the exhibit a sign that said the Orangutan was a grape soda jonesing species.

My day at the zoo was great. The tigers were my favorite and I really enjoyed the duck pond. I bypassed the rain forest exhibit only because I have a pathetically immense fear of reptiles. It was a good thing I skipped because a fat, lazy lizard was chilling out in the walkway like it owned the joint. It is not certain if it was loose, or if it just likes to party in the walkway.

I did hear about a couple boys who decided to see if the lizard was friendly. They tugged slightly on the tail and touched it, all while their illiterate mother stood by and snapped photos. Great holiday card, a photo of her pulling on his little legs as the lizard swallowed his head. Merry Christmas from ICU! The lizard was apparently tired and didn't care because no ambulance showed up.

We watched lions nap, checked out the new baby zebra, took pictures of a hippo named Mara, and finally made it to the exit after petting some sheep and laughing at some horned goat deer creature in the black bear exhibit area. Thanks to my astute love of the NBC show "The Office" I was able to ace a quiz on the black bear and they in fact, do not eat beets.

The apes were a group favorite. The baby was very active and a female was sitting on a bucket staring. We were enjoying their antics until a estúpido hombre came strolling up sipping a grape soda. He held it up to the glass and the female reached for it. The glass obviously wouldn't allow that to happen. That is because orangutans aren't supposed to guzzle carbonated beverages, or touch the people viewing the exhibit. Read the map.

The moron crawled up on a bench and reached over the concrete ledge dangling his soda in front of the bucket sitting ape. The orangutan was trying to reach the bottle by putting its entire arm through the flex fence. The human like fingers were close, but no cigar. To help its effort the ape pulled a branch from its habitat and tried knocking the bottle off the ledge after he had sat it down to retrieve his phone for up close pics. Pretty smart ape, but not genius because no way was that little branch knocking off a full bottle of soda. Then the idiot reached out and tried to touch the ape's hand. All I could picture was the ape hand grabbing the hombre and ripping his arm off and then he would be disarmed right there in front of all those kids.

Like a train wreck we all stood around and watched, waiting to see if the ape could reach out just...a little...further...and be the lead story on the six o'clock news. I actually started composing what I would say to Brian Quick and his WIBW microphone as he interviewed witnesses.

"Tell me about this horrifying scene," he would ask.

"Totally saw it coming, that idiot was asking for it," I would bluntly tell him. "I read the map and clearly apes are not allowed soda because it says right here," I would hold the map up to the camera and point to the words clearly printed. "The animals are on special diets and different foods can make them sick."

Then I would put in a shameless plug for The National Institute for Literacy.

The zoo keeper came to the ape's rescue and yelled at the fool to "get down, no contact sir!" Not sure he understood because she spoke perfect English, but he backed away from the ape.

I swear the ape seemed disappointed. Either way - bottle of soda or arm - the ape was going to have a productive day. It's always the stupid folks that ruin the fun for everyone else.