Good For A Laugh
 
 
 
I love a good laugh.  It is one of God's greatest inventions
Psalm 2:4 begins -
"He who sits in the heavens laughs."
The following short stories are offered for your enjoyment.  I 
hope they cause you to laugh, especially if you need a laugh.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Jambie 
 
 
 
About a year before I began my career with the zoo, a legend died.  His name was Jambie.  He was a large adult male orangutan.  I never met the fellow, but his delightful episodes were told and retold, as all great tales should be.  You see, Jambie was an incurable practical joker.  His specialty was water jokes. 
 
 
Over the years, Jambie learned the art of trading.  He would throw food that he didn't care for out of the cage in hopes that someone would give him something he really liked.  What happened most of the time was that a person would retrieve the castaway food and throw it back to Jambie.  Jambie was a bit frustrated that no trade was effected, so at some point he conceived a plan to humiliate the naive zoo patrons who were missing the point.
 
 
Now it may be helpful for you to know that Jambie could hold half a gallon of water in his cavernous mouth.  To entice the inept traders, he learned to drop his trading to them close to the wire cage.  When the patron would bend over the guardrail to fetch the food, Jambie would climb quickly to a position above the person and spew on-half gallon of liquid all over his or her back.
 
 
He learned the art of positioning for other purposes also.  He would grind up his monkey biscuits and sprinkle them just outside his cage.....but within the reach of his monstrous hand.  From the base of his palm to the tip of his fingers it measured fifteen inches.  He would lay his hand down near the crumbs and wait with patience  for the peacock's hen  and her chicks to come close to the bait.  With a sudden sweep of his hand he had new and animated toys.  He 
would bring them into his cage and play with 
them for hours.
The Weekend Authority
 
 
I have listened to hundreds of zoo patrons say some incredible things about the animals, but 
none more incredible than what Henry told Mildred about the beisa oryx.  A beisa oryx is an African antelope.  It is one of the larger members of the family, standing about three and one-half feet 
high at the shoulder.  Its slender horns curve gracefully another two feet above the head.  It is a combination of sublte gray, brown, black and white - a strikingly beautiful creature.
 
 
Henry studied the orxy for several seconds.  You could tell he was impressed.  By the look of his clothing and the sound of accent, my guess was that he was visiting from Arkansas.  I couldn't be sure, but he was surely from somewhere in the Deep South.  His voice caught my attention.  I was inside a barn taling to an animal keeper about a medication he would be giving one of the 
animals when Henry began to lecture his family on what he had learned from reading the zoo signs. I peeked out the door and saw Henry surrounded by his three little boys.  They were all dressed in overalls and wore no shirts.  Mildred, his wife, stood where I would have stood if my family were dressed that way in Southern California - about twenty feet away. 
 
 
"Hey Mildred," he hollered, "you won't believe this!  This here orxy has a gestation period of 267 days.  That is a mighty long time to digest your food."
 
 
"What does the mean daddy?" ventured one of 
his cherubs.
 
 
"Billy Joe, it means that what the animal eats today won't be eliminated until next February."
Then he sighed and said, "Isn't that amazing?"
 
 
It was mid-July.
Now You See It....Now You Don't...Now You Do!
 
 
 
It was clearly entered into the  daily log;
"Six puppies born to Mr. and Mrs. Coyote."  Everybody thought they were cute.  But Charlie their keeper, found these irresistible.  As soon as their mother began to take periodic breaks  from them, Charlie would slip in to tame them.  They responded quickly to his affection.
 
 
One little female was a standout.  She was gentle, affectionate, and would stay with Charlie longer than all the rest.  Cahrlie became very attatched to her and was soon locking all the others out 
with mom so  that he could play with his little beloved.  Before long, he decided that this pup was far too special to grow up in a zoo.  He made the decision to take her home and slipped her out in his lunch pail.
 
 
Not too many days passed before the senior keeper noticed that there were five puppies 
rather than six.  He approached Charlie to see if he knew what might have happened to the 
missing puppy.  Charlie told Al that he never remembered there being six.  Al must have counted one twice.  Al was nobody's fool, but he decided to buy the story for a couple of reasons.  First, the coyotes had no real value, and second, their future in the zoo world was very uncertain.  If Charlie had swiped it, it was sure to be loved and well cared for.
 
 
Charlie lived in an apartment building with his wife, Cindy.  She fell in love with the pup as soon as she saw it and agreed they should keep it.  They had a sterling relationship with their landlady and she  reluctantly gave them permisssion to care for it.  They convinced her that it was simply a mongrel dog, but as the puppy grew their landlady grew skeptical.  She would periodically ask, 
"That isn't a wolf is it?"
 
 
"No, it's just a terrier shephard mix," said Charlie and Cindy.
 
 
Well, the landlady became more and more focused on the puppy's origin.  Charlie and Cindy could see the growing concern on her face, and they knew in their hearts that they were going to have to give back the puppy or surely the chance of getting caught for stealing.  They had no friends who wanted a coyote, so Charlie decided he 
would return her to the zoo.  He drove his car directly to her exhibit and returned the coyote 
pup to the cage.  It was very early, and no one witnessed the glad reunion.  Although she had been away nearly six months, she was well-received by her family and readjusted to zoo life quite nicely.
 
 
It wasn't until Charlie's day off that anything out of the ordinary was noticed.  His relief keeper came to Al, the senior keeper, and said, "You have to come and see this.  Al I can't believe it."
 
 
Al followed the relief keeper to the coyote exhibit and stepped inside the cage.  He was immediately approached by a tame, teenaged coyote that llicked his hands and whined for attention.
 
 
"I've never seen anything like this in my life," said the dumbfounded keeper.
 
 
"Neither have I," replied Al, as he stroked his chin thoughtfully.
 
 
Al never pursued the subject with Charlie, so far as I know, but he did mention to Charlie that he'd better take a course in basic maths, so he could keep an accurate record of his string.  Keepers speculated about how a coyote became tame 
over night.
 
 
Author ~ Gary Richmond