THE ZOO Part 2: "THE VIKINGS"

Building from yesterday's episode where we escaped from Venice... I want to quickly draw your attention to a popular cigarette commercial at this time in the 60's. If you're old enough, you might remember it. If you're too young, then you might not know that there was a time that they allowed cigarette commercials on TV trying to convince dummys that smoking was actually cool.  It was a Salem ad (Kids DON'T SMOKE) I still remember it, the popular jingle went like this... "You can take Salem out of the country, but you can't take the country out of Salem."   

Is anyone already getting the connection? (Raise your hand if you think you might know where I'm going with this.)  Stick around and see if your correct then give yourself a pat on the back. SIMPLY: "You can take the Dahlins out of Venice but you can't take the Venice out of the Dahlins." Did you get it right? Anyway, let me say it differently... The Dahlin brood pulled out of Venice, but it didn't mean that we were escaping their inner Viking. NO WAY 

In the words of Bill Cosby, "We were off to the zoo." In the thought bubble of our dog Poochie, "It was bound to be a disaster."

When the overstuffed station-wagon (that's a type of car families drove in 60's) pulled into the parking lot everything (the smell, the noise, the violence, the name calling, the attitude - all of it) squeezed out of the car like Crest oozing out of a tube of toothpaste under pressure.         Watch out world HERE WE WERE!

 

When we got there the boys scattered in a million direction and began climbing over fences and squeezing under the turnstiles.  The Dahlins had arrived and the zoo would never be the same.

Gustav - the oldest, immediately went out on a hunt for girls. Hormones had set in and he didn't care a lick about the animals, He was a teenager on a mission.  When the older boys (along with our additions) scattered to the four winds my mother felt the zoo might have been safer that way. 

When Mom, the two girls and I finally made it to the monkey habitat. I was excited to see the cute little critters. 

But the winds began to change - like a warm Santa Ana wind, blowing in from the east. It was an OMINOUS SIGN that something bad was just ahead (like Dorthy in the Wizard of Oz). The Dahlins - all of them... all 92 of them (okay I'm stretching that a little - but that's what it seemed like) converged at the monkey habitat as if strange ill fate brought us all back together. "Mad Dog" (one of the older boy's nickname) made some snide remark about them being our relatives and "Flea-Bait" (another nickname) began jumping up and down on the ledge of the dry moat mimicking the monkeys.

This was his big chance. Bouncing up and down, he pretended to eat an invisible banana with one hand and scratched his side with the other. One by one, people began to gather to watch his dumb act.  As he   mimicked the monkeys, the monkeys mimicked him. This was his stage and the people loved him (of course I was jealous) but I knew I could do a better monkey (Sister Godzilla told me when she caught me climbing over the cloakroom wall to make fun of her behind her back). 

Flea-Bait did not want to let the vast crowds down that had assembled to watch his show. The more they clapped the bigger his performance grew, the wilder he got the bigger the applause. He had the frantic monkeys and the throngs of visitors eating out of the palm of his hand - "disgusting!"  He kept creeping closer and closer to the edge of the dry moat that separated zoo visitors from the monkeys below that were unable to make the 20 foot leap to freedom. 

Mom wanted him down and invoked the clause. "The-Under-Pain-Of-Mortal-Sin" clause. What that means to a good Catholic is - that if you don't immediately respond, then you are subject to a mortal sin and will likely spend another million years in Purgatory.  MOM SHOUTED, "Flea Bait, under pain of mortal sin get down right this instant." Only Flea Bait couldn't hear mom over the thunderous approval of his audience and the screeching of the agitated monkeys below in the pit. 

What you got to understand is - is that mom had invoked the clause in order to get the older boys into the car this morning in the first place. We took it serious, very serious! Knut (not the first born, but still an older brother that had a bit of first-born police-keeping in his compulsive personality), thought he would enforce "THE CLAUSE."   

Knut went over and gave O' Flea-Bait a slight shove to scare the Purgatory out of him just as Flea-Bait was spinning off balance on one leg. Yep, you guessed it... Knut sent Flea-Bait over the edge. 20 feet below the anxious monkeys had received him as if a prophecy had been fulfilled in their midst. 

(I'm sorry, but I'll have to come back to the gruesome and hilarious details of this event that went from bad to worse). 

May God keep you and bless you and may you never break "THE CLAUSE."