We took advantage of "free day" at the zoo today. It was a beautiful autumn morning and most of the animals were still out for viewing, but some had already been moved for the winter months.

It was a good zoo. They had all the normal zoo animals, zebras, elephants, monkeys, etc. They also had "the farmyard". Many zoos have areas like this where they have cows, sheep, pigs, donkeys, etc. on display. I always thought they were kind of funny. Coming from a farming community I saw cows, sheep, pigs, etc. everyday. I assumed the rest of the world knew what these animals were and knew that they really were not that interesting. Why would people go to a zoo with exotic animals all around them and choose to stare at a beef cow instead? Today as we walked into "the farmyard" I thought I had figured it out. It made me feel at home. For ten minutes I felt like I was back in Wisconsin looking at John and Carrie's cows. I was just waiting for the puppy to run up behind me and start biting my pant legs and freaking the boys out. People like me who sometimes miss the smell of cows can be comforted for just a few minutes. How nice of the zoo people to think of others and want to comfort them in this way. That's what this area was made for, right?

Wrong. I was so very very wrong. They have these "farmland" areas in zoos because people really are clueless about simple, everyday farm animals. As we were standing at a fence looking at a pig, a woman came and stood beside us. She had a question she wanted answered and it went a little something like this:

"Is that a rabbit?"

REALLY lady (A grown woman in her 40's, and very serious. This was not a joke to her)? You are staring at an animal with a snout, curly tail, and covered in mud and you think it is a rabbit? The farmland area is important for people like this. I never realized that some people don't know what a pig is. Obviously she also does not know what a rabbit looks like. Maybe she doesn't know what a squirrel or a dog looks like either. What is this world coming to??