There was a time when I would step outside a bar and look for the kindest smoker I could bum a cigarette from. At the time I had no idea I was building a valuable hunter-gatherer skillset for parenthood.
Saturday, we went to the zoo with Kiff and his mom. We found ourselves standing at the gorilla cage, noting how pongy they smelled. As I moved around the fenced enclosure with G. in my arms, I noticed people clearing away from *me*. It was then I realised that the pong was G's diaper. And that the diaper bag had not made it out of the house.
I walked with stinky-butt toddler into the food area and found parents with a kid about G's size. Um. I will pay you for a diaper, I said, syntactically borrowing from my early smoke-mooching days.
"No, you can just have one."
Oh, thanks SO MUCH. (in smoker etiquette, you always offer money, but no one takes it)
Um, Do you have wipes? (the social smoker usually fesses up that they don't even have a lighter, owning up that they never even had a pack in the first place.)
"Sure. Do you want another diaper just in case?" (this rare offer in cigarette land indicates a generous soul who knows your type never stops at just one).
Nah, we'll be outta here in an hour. Should be fine.
Famous last words.
Standing at the giraffes, there was a distinctive potpourri of scented diaper and feces that could not have originated from a long-necked vegetarian. Again? I looked around, desperately, and located a kind looking mother who offered a "big pinch" of wipes and diapers that were both G's size AND my favourite brand.
I got him cleaned up on a grassy hill, found a bag for the diaper, bottled water-washed and anti-bacterialized my hands et voila! A clean and happy baby. And Kiff thinks I'd be a whiny camper...
At this point I would tell you that G's fave parts of the zoo included the ants outside the ice cream stand and the little zoo buggies that tore up the paths. Less impressive or fathomable were the depressive lions and lethargic and rhinocerus.
As we left, the sky darkened and a menacing wind began to move through the trees. And that's when a human stampede began. A particularly panicked woman shouted "The trees are falling down!" and rammed her stroller into my ankle as she looked everywhere but ahead.
Poo, hunter-gathering, and stampedes. That's what I learned at the zoo.
