The latter turns and attacks Shabani's father thinking he is the culprit. As they prepare to leave their enclosure, pinches Ai's mother's buttocks and immediately hides. The prank of the young gorilla At Higashiyama Zoo in Nagoya, Japan, Annie, a young gorilla, she plays a prank on her parents.We continue driving into the evening, stopping at a hotel on the outskirts of Pittsburgh around ten or eleven that night. In the commode lies an unspeakable, inhuman horror, floating and turning over on itself in the chardonnay-colored water like a hideous manatee. I silently move towards the toilet, one foot in front of the other, like an Iroquois stalking a deer. There were no bone piles or bloody handprints on the wall. Which did the ogre choose? I figured the farther one - ogres prefer dark caves, the undersides of bridges, etcetera, and so his instincts would take him as far away from the village as possible. There are two unisex bathrooms, side by side.

I can't hold it and there aren't any other options, so I clench my fists and advance back into the breach. Nothing.Īfter a few minutes the ogre returns to his feeding. I scan the parking lot for a portajohn or a well-placed tree. Oh god, I tell him, I think the ogre went to the bathroom. As I enter the burrito joint, I notice the ogre's stool is vacant, but his kill is still spread across the table top. I finish my meal, toss my trash, and move for the restroom. Much of his food is on his shirt, of which there are two, one worn and the other hanging limply around his neck.Īt one point the ogre staggers out into the parking lot and opens his mouth, allowing his masticated kill to plop onto his shirt and the pavement, and then staggers back inside. He looks something like what I imagine my 3 year old daughter thinks about when I describe a fairytale ogre. About halfway through our burritos we notice an odd-looking fellow sitting on a stool in the window behind us.

They had outside seating, and since we were both eager to breath in diesel fumes and dine alongside the choirs of jake brakes booming down the nearby highway, we went for it. We snap the trailer on to my Land Rover and head back to Chris' place to load up. The trailer lights are a little dim, but they work. He sets off to find a different one- uncomplainingly, to his credit - and enlists our help to pull from the furthest recesses of the lot an even more wretched-looking backup trailer. We summon the lot boy and explain that this trailer is, well, an unacceptable pile of shit, and we'll need another. Without tiedowns we couldn't safely haul our bikes. Tiedown hooks were missing and large chunks had been savagely hewn from the wooden braces lining the interior, as if the previous customer had hauled a pack of unshackled chimpanzees. The first trailer looked OK on the outside, and the lot boy seemed keen on hitching us up and getting us out of there, so I'm glad Chris had the instinct to open the door and examine the interior. If you've read my other ride reports, you'll remember that Chris and I have terrible luck with rental vehicles.

We both took off from work early on Friday to pick up the trailer, load the bikes, and maybe shave a few hours off the 12 hour slog to Michigan. We instead decided on a 5x8 trailer from the UHaul place down the street, which we'd tow with my SUV. But this time few vans were available and those that were we found prohibitively expensive. In previous episodes we've rented a Ford Transit van for this kind of hauling work. Chris and I have the good fortune of living near each other, having relatively similar careers (we're both active duty US Army officers), and we're also cousins, so the necessary coordination and setup is routine for us at this point. The first step was hauling our bikes and our bodies from Washington DC to Michigan.

A shaved chimpanzee