Laughing like a Hyena

I don't know about you...but I went to the zoo! Here's a little back story in order to get you in the loop on my feelings towards zoos...
       
        My whole life, my family was all about going to zoos. Luckily for us, Chicago has two: the Brookfield Zoo and the Lincoln Park Zoo. Despite there being two zoos not too far from home, my family was adoment on going to as many different zoos as physically possible. One time, we drove all the way from the top of Illinois to the bottom of Alabama for one zoo. Of course, we stopped at nine other zoos along the way. Since I've been so submerged in the world of zoos, I'm not particularly a fan, not to mentiont the nice array of smells you get depedning on the animal you're near. You'd think they'd plant some flowers or something to mask that distinct "nature" smell.

With all of that being said, here's some snapshots of my day at the zoo:

    Walking around, the zoo was pretty empty, so it was surprisingly difficult to find people laughing. My roommate, who I forced to come with me, was going from exhibit to exhibit with me. Near the monkeys,we saw two little boys running around and imitating the sounds the monkeys were making. The one brother initiated the laughter and play, and it sparked laughter in his little brother. The laughter of one brother was contagious, making the other laugh even more. The parents thought it was funny at first, but eventually they told them to quiet down and look at the animals. Children are so imaginitive, and parents aren't always able to be in that same mindset.

 

 

As we continued walking, we kept coming across two girls that went to TCU (The one had a horned frog shirt on under the blue top). Seeing how they interacted with each other made me laugh; the one was more serious, and the other would often make jokes about things they were seeing. This made me laugh because in my situation, I was the one joking around, and my roommate was the serious one. At one point, the girls came across a little gift cart, filled with funky animal hats. The girl in the purple put one on, and got a laugh out of her friend. This inspired her friend to try on a silly hat as well. This went back and forth for a little while, each time eliciting more and more laughter. In this case, the laughter came from incongruity. How often does someone have a purple giraffe on his or her head? Exactly. The girls appeared to be getting some relief (hint hint: relief theory) from their finals by having fun at the zoo.

I'll admit that I'm an incredibly random person- always have been, always will be. Although this kangaroo isn't alive, it still got some laughter out of my roommate. For whatever reason, my initial instinct upon seeing the golden marsupial was to mimic it and take a picture. "WAIT! TAKE MY PICTURE!' I yelled at my roommate. Being used to my antics by now, she didn't question my request and simply laughed. Not only did she laugh at me, but I laughed at myself. You could consider this laughter contagious, but she was really just laughing at my inherent awkwardness. 

This isn't really a picture of people lauging or animals (besides the fake vulture), but I thought it was so neat that the zoo had this. "Dear Departed Brother Dave, He chased a bear into a cave." When I saw this I immediately started laughing. It reminded me of the little tombstones that they have outside of the Haunted Mansion in Disney World (I'm a child I know..). The fact that a zoo has a mini cemetery was so funny to me; it definitely shows incongruity since it's one of the last things you expect to see on a stroll through the zoo. The intended purpose was obviously to make peope laugh, but it doesn't really prove to spark a domino effect of laughter since it's really up to each indiidual person if it's funny or not.