I can't be sure this state of mind is not of my own design

“Oh man, I wanted to go here!” He said as we turned the corner and he saw the sign. “You guys have the number one zoo in the country right now, I was told by everyone that I had to come see it. This is great!” He exclaimed.

I beamed with pride. “You know, Matt. The Columbus zoo hadn’t always been great. Thirty years ago, when Jack Hanna was interviewing to become the next zoo director, the taxi driver couldn’t even tell him where the zoo was, that’s how horrible it was. The animals were kept in concrete cages, and out in front of the entrance there was just a mud pit. Jack came in and turned the whole thing around, building new, natural exhibits, educating the public, and building a sense of community pride.”

“Jack Hanna? Like the guy that’s on Letterman all the time with the animals?”

“That’s him. Jack’s kind of a hero of mine. I mean he did all this, but he also does more. I mean besides his conservation efforts, he also goes to Rwanda frequently, and even built a house there to help the economy after the genocide. He’s just really, amazing. I mean, you’ll get a chance to go to the zoo again, the after school group tries to go at least once, but… Today Jack Hanna’s visiting. I got an email last night, and he’s doing a meet and greet. I’m honestly so excited!” I squealed.

Call me a dork, but ever since I had read Jack’s book, I had just been totally obsessed with him. I went out and got my zoo membership, fanned him on facebook, and wikipedia’d the crap out of him. To me he was smart, he cared about animals, and he was funny. If the guy wasn’t sixty two years old and married, I would seriously fall in love.

“Wow. This is so… Neat!” Matt exclaimed. I thought he might be making fun of me, but when I glanced at his face, I saw it was filled with honest excitement. Matt didn’t think I was a dork at all for this, he felt the same way!

“Yeah, well. In addition to seeing Jungle Jack, you’ll also get to see Fluffy, the largest snake in captivity, Colo, the first Gorilla to be born into captivity, and Beco, our new baby elephant.”

“I’m just really excited to see Jack Hanna.”

“Yeah, me too.” I said, pulling up to the gate and flashing my membership card. “Did you know he was in a music video?”

“Really?”

“Yep. Billy’s got his beer goggles on, by Neal McCoy. He’s just hilarious. He’s also doing a show that I hope to catch. It’s going to be crazy busy, that’s why I got you up so early!”

We were there early enough to get a good parking spot, and walked up to the front gate. I wanted to make it to Jack’s first show, which started at ten. It was only nine thirty, but I knew that’s when they started seating, and I wanted to get a good spot. I rushed Matt, who wanted to stop and look at everything on our way to the stage. I pulled him along, assuring him that there would be plenty of time to go back and look at everything later.

We caught Jack’s first show, which was amazing, and hilarious. If you’ve ever seen Jack Hanna speak, he just has a way of coming off as so… Stupid. It’s hard to explain, you know he knows what he’s talking about, but he just says it in a way that… It’s just funny. I really admire that, and I think a lot of kids probably learn a lot from him without even knowing that they’re learning.

After his first show, we rushed over to the meet and greet. It was held in a new area, Jungle Jack’s landing, which helped connect the zoo to the water park they just built. Jungle Jack’s featured rides, and also an area where zookeepers brought out animals for a closer look or even to hold and touch. We stood in line, petting various animals that keepers walked by us with, and watching the owls that they had out in the yard. Finally, it was our turn to meet Jack, and I let out a squeal of excitement.

I wanted to tell him so much, how I hoped that I could encourage kids like he did, about the animal program I wanted to start at the agency, and even ask him for any tips, or if he’d be willing to visit sometime. I ended up getting so tongue-tied and flustered that all I could do was stand there while a picture of us was snapped. As I shook his hand, I was finally able to speak.

“I just wanted to thank you, for everything you’ve done here, and in Rwanda.” I don’t know why that was what I choose to say, but I was just glad that I was able to say SOMETHING.

“Oh, thank you. You know, your shirt is the color of Rwanda.”

I had no idea what to say to that, and looked down to see that I was wearing my Save Darfur shirt. I wasn’t sure if that was what he was referring to our what, and I didn’t get the chance to ask before the next person stepped up for their chance to meet Jack.


I didn’t have time to dwell on my lack of social skills, or even be embarrassed. Matt was pulling on my arm, tugging on me excitedly. I decided we should start at the back of the zoo, and work our way up, that way when we were done we wouldn’t have to walk all the way back to the entrance. We went to the Australia section first, going through the kangaroo walk through, which was an open exhibit where the kangaroos could walk up to you, if they felt like it. I was always told by keepers that if I wanted this to happen, I needed to come first thing when they opened, as the kangaroos were more active during the mornings. And I always forget.

After touring Australia, we stopped at the Congo River food court, and sat down to eat a healthy lunch of pizza, pop, and fries.

“I gotta stop eating like this.” I said as we sat down, stuffing my slice into my face.

Matt shrugged, picking up his own piece. “Eat healthy, stay fit, die anyway. Besides,” he paused, taking a bite, "you look great."

“Yeah, right." I said, choosing to ignore the compliment. "You’re probably one of those people who can eat anything and not get fat.” I answered, my mouth full of cheese and grease and goodness.

“It’s the height.” He answered, shrugging again.

“How tall are you, exactly?” I had been wanting to ask him this for awhile now, but wasn’t sure if it would be considered rude.

“Seven-two.” He answered. “How tall are you?”

“Five-six.”

“Short stuff.” He teased.

“Jolly Green Giant.” I shot back.


We finished eating and went headed over to Africa to see the gorillas. After that, we made our way over to Asia. We stopped at various stops along the way, checking out the tortoises, manatees, reptile house, and flamingos. Along our walk, Matt’s hand kept hitting mine, and every time it did, I felt my breath catch in my throat. I wondered if he did this on purpose, or if it were just by accident, he was sort of a gangly guy. Still, I had to put my hand in my pocket to refrain from reaching out and holding his hand. There had been tension in the air after our encounter this morning, and I desperately wanted it to dissipate. We finally came upon Asia, one of my favorite parts of the zoo. They had just built it not too long ago, and it was gorgeous. This is also where Beco the baby Elephant was kept, and it was hilarious to see Matt go goo-goo over him, even going as far as to bust out the baby talk. I teased him mercilessly for this, and all he could do was blush and tell me to knock it off. We ended up catching the red panda out and about, and Matt started baby-talking again. This time though, I couldn’t blame him. The red panda almost looked fake, it was so cute. It looked like it had walked right off the page of some girlie Japanese anime.

After Asia, we headed to North America, which was my least favorite part of the zoo. I thought the exhibits were boring, and the animals were almost always passed out here. The bears always put on a show, and we stood and watched them fight for a little bit. One finally walked over to the viewing glass and actually licked it, surprising me so much that I jumped back, bumping into Matt. His arms went around me for a brief second, to steady me perhaps, and then he quickly let go, pressing forward to the petting zoo.

After the petting zoo, we decided to head back and try to catch a different show, animals on safari, before we left. The zoo took a bunch of different wild animals (porcupine, kangaroo, groundhog, skunk, and a few others.) and mixed them with some domesticated animals (dogs, cats, rats, ducks, pigs, a mini horse, a parrot… ect.) and taught them to do some amazing tricks. They also rescued most of the domestic animals from shelters, and it was just amazing how far these animals came. Afterwards, we went down to pet a couple of the animals in the show, and headed out to gift shop.

Matt and I goofed around in the gift shop for a little while, trying on the animal shaped hats and sunglasses, as well as the Jack Hanna safari style hat they had for sale, goofing off and cracking jokes. We were getting ready to leave when I made a quick stop at the bathroom. When I came back, Matt had a large bag in his hand.

“You buy Kellie something?” I asked.

“I bought a few things. One of them is for Kellie.”

The mention of Kellie seemed to always put Matt in either a bad mood, or a closed off mood, so I decided to learn my lesson and back off. He didn’t say a word to me as we walked to the car. As we were pulling out of the parking lot, Matt finally spoke.

“Do you think you can love someone and be with them if you aren’t IN love with them?”

I thought about this for a moment. I wanted to ask if this was about Kellie, but again, decided it was probably a bad idea to bring her up.

“I think you can be. But the question is, would you want to be? I mean is it fair to either person? I for one, wouldn’t want to tie down a guy if he didn’t love me, no matter how much I loved him.” I answered, my mind automatically flicking to Jason. I wondered if that was the case with Jason, or if perhaps he loved Kayla but wasn’t in love with her, and chose to be with her instead of hurting her. Whatever, it’s not like it mattered now. I had gotten to the point where I was thinking about Jason less and less, and had even ignored him when he called me today.

Matt grew quiet again, I suppose thinking about his issue, and I decided it would be a good time to check my voicemail.

“Ella, it’s Jason. I need to talk to you, you need to call me back as soon as possible.”