Underpants On The Outside

Those of you who don’t live in New York wouldn’t know this, but last night the weather reached an approximate temperature of “hot as shit” (Celsius).  Last night was particularly bad because at about 3:30 AM my fan started rattling.  It was too hot to sleep without the fan, but the rattling was too intermittent to fade into the background.  Y’know, like Chinese Water Torture.  I eventually fell asleep, but spent the rest of the night dreaming I was trapped in a Xerox machine.

Well, according to this article I’d have a better apartment if only I was a polar bear.

After a midday feeding, the 19-year-old bears, both decked out in their slightly thinner but no less luxurious summer coats, slipped into an air-conditioned four-den room that the zoo maintains at about 60 degrees.

As far as what I’m decked out in, I’ve taken a clipper to every hair on my body more than an inch long.  Every. Single. One.

Gus, who about a decade ago had his keepers worried about his compulsive swimming and needed special intervention to help him become focused on other pastimes, spent much of yesterday swimming around the 90,000-gallon pool.  In the heat, it seemed the only sensible thing for a 926-pound bear to do.

“Other pastimes?”  Like what, Little League?  His homework?  Other than swimming, sleeping and some penguin hunting, what does a polar bear do?  Also, my bathtub’s capacity is ten gallons of water and about a pound of my roommates’ hair.

Ida, a more dainty 670 pounds, was just out of Gus’s lap lane. She peered at sweaty visitors who watched her through a large window at the edge of the tank. Eventually, tired of the pictures and the pointing, she waded to a nearby rock for five minutes in the sun.

If she thinks that’s exhausting, she oughta try watching TV.  I don’t know how long she’s going stay at a ‘dainty’ 670 pounds with that kind of lifestyle.  Maybe the reason Gus is so compulsive about his swimming is because no matter how hard he tries, he can’t seem to get rid of those last tricky 256 pounds.

In a nod to their natural diet, Ms. Ackerman provided ice pops with chunks of frozen salmon. Gus lumbered over, gave the giant ice cube a few licks and rolled it toward the water, where he could eat with his feet immersed.

Sounds like Gus was a little ashamed too.  He eats ’cause he’s sad; he’s sad ’cause he eats.  Unfortunately, a frozen juice box seems to be as close as I’m going to get to the lavish life of the polar bear.

In August, the bears will have a culinary treat, when the television chef and talk-show host Rachael Ray will go up against one of the zoo’s keepers in a quest to create the most bear-appealing treat from ingredients ranging from tilapia to whipped cream.

No human who looked forward to a dish of whipped cream and fish would be allowed to judge a cooking contest; I don’t see why we’re bending the rules for a polar bear.*   Not to get on my high horse, but we should probably feed some homeless people before Rachael whips up her famous foie gras shark chum.

“They really like whipped cream, but they get it sparingly,” Ms. McIntyre said. “We figured as long as Rachael Ray was cooking, we figured we’d give them something special.”

Why not invite the Queer Eyes over while you’re at it?  Poor Gus has been wearing white for what feels like forever, and we all know he’d look slimmer in black.

Rachael Ray or not, the bears see restaurant-quality fare on a daily basis — an assortment of fish from trout to mackerel, the same grade that goes to cruise ships.

That’s the unfettered life of polar bears in New York.

It’s settled: polar bears are the obnoxious rich assholes of the animal kingdom.   It’s fitting they live in Central Park.   The fish at the Brooklyn Aquarium barely make rent, and they’re fitting twenty in a no bedroom, one bathroom tank.

*I would think this was completely ridiculous if I hadn’t seen my mom fix the dog a sandwich on numerous occasions.