Man-Eating Beasts

by Brittney

I would assume that every person has a vivid memory of the zoo: a time within childhood that one can examine wildlife doing its business and whatnot while having the luxury to stand behind fences and not get eaten, because being eaten would probably just ruin the whole experience.

I, like many others, have a vivid memory of the zoo, one that I acquired during the early years of my childhood…

I enjoyed so much to see all of the things that happen at the zoo: the lions lounging under the sun, the flamingos folding their knees backwards, and all of the other alliterative actions that occur among the members of the animal kingdom. As this was one of my first zoo outings, I willingly agreed to enter what I now know as a death trap: the petting zoo.

The camel and the donkey both tucked safely in their shelters with a fence between them and me fascinated me and kindly kept their distance so that I neither had to touch nor smell them. For that, I was grateful. But after being in the petting zoo for a while, I had grown too confident. I had begun to do crazy things such as petting the goats and not showing fear of them. That was my first mistake. My second mistake occurred the moment I let my guard down. I had grown so incredibly comfortable with these freely roaming creatures that I no longer was paying attention to my surroundings, and that almost cost me my life.

Standing alone in the middle of the petting zoo, confident of the distance between my family and me, I began to feel the strangest of sensations on my scalp. It tickled …and smelled. As I slowly turned my head, I saw the source of the tingling: The man-eating beast of the petting zoo…the goat. A furry black and white creature had decided that my long brown hair looked like a delicious snack more than anything else and had made its way up an entire strand of hair. Its goat lips had reach the top of my head. I never even realized until I was older that my hair had been completely down its throat. Gross. It stared into my eyes mocking me with its evil scariness. I let out a scream that would have curdled blood and began wailing in the way only a small child being attacked by a monster would. The time it took for my father to reach me seemed like an eternity, and on his arrival picked me up though the goat was still attached to my head.

To this day, I refuse to enter a petting zoo due to the experience that scarred me for life. I came to this startling realization the other day: now that I have a small child, it will only be a short time until I will be required to reenter a petting zoo and explain to my own child why I will be crying.