s e v e n i s a j o u r n e y

Last weekend our friend Dayna had a birthday party. She wanted something new and exciting, so had her party at the zoo.

As an overnight sleep-over!

I get the impression that 99% of the groups that do the zoo sleep over experience are grade-schoolers. I think leading a bunch of adults around for the night tour was extra amusing for our guide, Dion. I think our rather twisted humour broke his brain at times.

My favorite moment was standing 2 meters from the tiger enclosure watching them pace about by the light of our flashlights. Eyes in the darkness. Seeing tigers under those conditions at quite close range certainly twigs the monkey brain to shout “You are a prey animal! Those are tigers! What are you doing, idiot!”

After the tour the birthday party began. While alcohol was forbidden, there was no rule against excessive sugar and caffine. The birthday girl and about a half dozen others were up all night, the remaining 30 (or so) of us managed a few hours of sleep. Considering the all-nighters were in the room with us loudly and spaztically playing board games, I am surprised we got any sleep at all!

The next morning I added a new term to my lexicon, the “un-asleep”. Much like the undead are not truely alive, the “un-alseep” are not truely awake. Like zombies, they also tend to stagger about with glassy-eyed looks.