Remember when Travis the wine drinking, car driving, Internet perusing, baseball watching chimp went fucking apeshit (sorry) and pulled that lady’s face off? I do. I remember, very specifically, that in the aftermath, the question on every faux-solemn, pretend-thoughtful news person’s lips seemed to be, “What could possibly have caused Travis to suddenly go bananas (sorry)?“ For the very first time, every know-it-all talking head was just plain baffled by this curious turn of events. The search for an answer led to the identification of Xanax, an unrecognized new haircut, and Lyme disease as possible culprits, but I have an entirely different theory, and it goes something like this: A WILD FUCKING ANIMAL IS A WILD FUCKING ANIMAL EVEN IF IT ENJOYS A NICE CHARDONNAY. (Look at me getting all Dian Fossey over here!) I’m old fashioned in the sense that I believe that teaching an animal to wear corduroy pants or watch YouTube isn’t necessarily the same as overriding millions of years of evolution that compel that same animal to, say, rip your best friend’s face off when it feels threatened. You see where I’m going with this, I think. Even when you have the very best intentions — and anyone who has seen Grizzly Man knows Timothy Treadwell was nothing if not earnest — living with wild animals is not for you. You may think that grizzly bears are like, “Dude, I really like having you around,” but actually, they are just barely tolerating your presence. I say no to this and I kind of urge you to do the same. Unless, of course, Christian the Lion is involved in which case you should totally bring him back to your apartment and teach him how to use the remote.
