Snorth turned thirty almost two years ago and she was supposed to have a party, but her grandfather passed away shortly before and all plans for festivities were scrapped. I turned thirty in July and I thought let’s do a joint belated 30th birthday thing. We both love nature and animals, we’ll have a party at this exotic animal rescue and education place, Outragehisss Pets. (It was also only a few minutes from Snorth’s house.) I invited all my suburban friends, especially the ones with kids, and Snorth invited a bunch of people and sho’ nuff we trundled off to Outragehisss Pets. It was AWESOME. We met a plethora of fascinating animals and we could touch them and the owner who is a lovely guy lectured us on the environment of each creature and what they eat and how they mate, etc. Most educational. I have pictures of the educational awesomeness. I will go in alphabetical order.
The two armadillos. The one on the left is a nine-banded armadillo native to Texas and the one on the right is a six-banded armadillo native to parts of South America. This was funny – armadillos store fat on their undersides and apparently the six-banded armadillo got really portly-like, so they put her on a diet. However, the skin on her underside didn’t retract, so when she walked around the skin under her body swung around. It looked like the upper arm of a 90-year-old woman. I called her “gastric bypass armadillo”. Here’s a pic where you can appreciate her.
The binturong. A binturong is a 40-pound mammal that lives in Indonesia. It looks like it’s had one too many nights out on the town drinking. And it has the strongest body funk I have ever smelled. Here’s the weird part: it smells like popcorn. So as body funks go, it’s not a bad one. While he was explaining everything about the binturong, it ate five bananas. I can’t eat five bananas, and I’m WAY more than forty pounds. Nice work, binturong. Her name is Maxine.
The best thing about Maxine was that she would bite off a big chunk of banana and it was too large for her mouth, so she would attempt to chew it, but her mouth couldn’t close. It was precious. Here is a picture of Maxine attempting to chew a banana chunk.
Now, cornsnakes. Snorth’s most favoritest color is orange, so I picked a snake (I was in charge of choosing the animals we met) with lots of orange on it. It was gorgeous. The owner brought it out with an albino version as well. You can see the beautiful checkerboard pattern on its underside.
The fennec. This is the reason I picked this place. I have always always always wanted to meet a fennec. It is a fox from the Sahara, the smallest member of the canine family (two pounds!). It disperses heat with its ears, so it’s ears are huge. It is the sweetest softest most-anime-character-resembling creature ever.
Kinkajou, also known as the honey bear. It’s in the raccoon family and it helps pollenate the rainforest (eats nectar, sticks its nose in a flower, gets pollen on its nose, sticks nose in another flower, deposits pollen). Paris Hilton had one for a pet for a few minutes back in the day. It’s got lovely plush fur and a prehensile tail it can use to hang in trees. I think our raccoons are nice, but kinkajous are just stellar. I would let it root through my garbage anytime.
Ah, the python. BIG snake. I got to hold part of it with six other people. Let me tell you, that snake was strong. When she wanted to move, she moved. Ain’t nothin’ we could do about it. Imagine a giant toned muscle tube. That’s what she was.
And finally, the tortoises. (There was also a skink, but I didn’t get any good pictures of it.) Bertha was the biggest tortoise, the next smaller one was her husband, and the two smallest ones were her kids from different egg-layings. Bertha was approximately eighty years old. That’s just impressive. All the tortoises also ate bananas, as you can see in the picture. They were great. Occasionally, Bertha would try and make a run for it, but since she moves at the speed of glaciers, she didn’t get very far.
And here is a picture of octegenarian Bertha.
After this incredible experience, our troop of sixteen went off to the Palisades Mall for dinner. When I got home, I was exhausted. I had been frolicking for over six hours. That’s a lot of frolicking. But it was worth it. People are already talking about doing it again next year.
