Hidden Truths

          I chuckled to myself as I walked through the zoo after-hours on December 3rd. I mean, who wouldn't chuckle? The entire zoo was abuzz with exhilaration, absolute astonishment over the news I had just announced over the intercom:
          "Attention every-animal! I am pleased to announce that when you awaken tomorrow, we will have snow! The faculty has decided to have snow delivered, here, just for you!"
          All of the animals just wouldn't stop chattering about it, and as I walked through the zoo, shutting down everything and feeding everyone, I overheard some very interesting conversations.
          Eesa in block 4A was probably the most excited out of all of the animals. Being a mother of four, this momma elephant just couldn't wait for snow to be delivered to her babies. While I was mucking out her stall, I listened intently as she described to her babies what snow was. Momma Eesa rambled on and on about the thicky white flakes that would fall to the ground tonight, and be there to play with tomorrow. Her babies were very excited, I heard all of them describe their plans for the snow before my chores with the elephants were done.
          "We'll all wake up super early tomorrow and watch the flakes fall! And we'll, we'll..." Memo, the oldest of the babies, elected himself party planner for the coming snow. "We'll run through it! Really fast! We'll have a race through the snow." All of Memo's brothers and sisters nodded their trunks in appreciation for frolicking through the snow, and Momma Eesa trumpeted proudly.
          Once I was done mucking out the elephants stall I moved along to Block 3C, where Keena the Kangaroo was kicking around, muttering to herself. During the time I cleaned out Keena's stall, I learned that she was deathly afraid of any sort of precepitation, and the prospect of snow absoloutely terrified her. The extent of Keena's paranoid mutterings almost worried me, and I made a mental note to tell the staff to keep all snow out of Keena's area. I had a lot of animals to clean up after, and I had already wasted to much dilly-dallying around listening to Keena's and Eesa's conversations on snow. I rushed through the amphibian and reptile part of the zoo and made it to the monkey house in no time. This section of the zoo was definitely the noisiest. I learned that along with throwing poo, the monkeys loved to throw snow, imagine that. I chuckled through the entire monkey house as I did my rounds of chores and moved on to check on the lion family. Lioness was just as excited as Momma Eesa to introduce her babies to snow. You could see the joy radiating off of her face as her cubs planned out wrestling in the snow.
          The next animal on my list were the polar bears and penguins in block 2D, by far my favorites. Tonight, though, they were pretty laid back and boring. None of them were talking much, and soon after I completed cleaning up I realized why: they weren't affected by my announcement. The polar bears and penguins already lived in an enviroment condusive to an icy tundra, with snow and ice and frozen waters. My announcement of fresh snow did not entertain them in the least, all they would do with it is as they do everyday: walk around in it, swim in it, lay in it. They surely wouldn't do too much fun with the snow.
          I finished closing down the zoo and took one last look around, trying to imagine what it would look like with snow. I chuckled some more as the only images that popped into my head were all of the animals frolicking in the flakes.