Baby Beluga

After my sudden realization of the finite nature of life and my wasting of said life I came to the conclusion that I need to do more. Instead of laying about the house reading this weekend, I needed to do something. It seemed to me that the hole in my life could easily be filled with polar bears. I LOVE polar bears; they’re my favorite animal which could easily tear off my arm. (Favorite animal that won’t tear of my arm: the tapir.) After only a small amount of arm twisting even my tough guy 11 year old cousin will admit that they are the “cutie-est.”

I decided to take said cousin to the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium in Tacoma to witness cutie-est-ness in action. Neither of us had ever been, and soon we’d persuaded my aunt and uncle to join us. It was a nice winter day- by Seattle standards- crisp, grey, and cool. Bundled in mittens and hats we traveled from area to area, giving each animal its own cartoon voice. Mostly, it seems that the animals are bored, and would also like to eat us- even the tapirs.

I’d been worried that because it is winter, there might not be much to see. It turns out there is a lot to see at this time of the year. A LOT. A lot of penises to see. Everywhere we went all the animals were going at it, like uhm… animals. “Oh look red wolves…” I would say. “Oh my,” I would say shortly thereafter.

The worst (and by that I mean the worst thing I have EVER seen in my entire life) were the beluga whales. It started out innocently enough with the two whales playing with a floating hoop. They played keep-away and swiftly swam around dragging the hoop and swimming through it halfway like bloated, albino, ballerinas. Cute, happy, bloated, albino, ballerinas. It was like he was smiling. I bet he was smiling, the pervert. After a while I decided to go into the observation room below the water level and there is was. The scariest thing I’ve ever seen. A beluga whale penis. It was terrifying in ways I refuse to describe. Let me just say that if I was a lady whale I’d beach myself.

Unbelievably, my cousin didn’t even notice the 2 foot long erect whale penis. This is the same kid who at like 5 was watching Friends and turned to me and said, “What’s a condom?” I sat there for a second and then said, “I think those are for married people.” “What, so you don’t know,” he said giving me the look that said ‘you naïve, provincial thing.’ “Well, I’m not married yet. I think they’re for boys….” I said smugly going back to my reading.