like every other kid who watched too many disney movies, i loved animals. i had a bunch of them, be they live, stuffed, or in the process of being hunted. but boy oh boy, i spent so much time with animals, that i scarcely took a moment to read. if only there were some publication that could combine the seemingly polar opposite worlds of animals and…reading. wait! what’s this commercial? zoobooks!!!

for whatever reason, my family decided to spend money on food that year, and i didn’t get a zoobooks subscription.

but the commercials persisted. for a while i was relieved. the magazine hadn’t gone bankrupt or whatever bad things i thought could happen to it when i was ten. but what the hell? as time went on, those freaking zoobooks covers never changed. never. i saw a commercial for them on tv last night while trying to figure out while metalocalpyse is considered funny, and the whole sales pitch was the same as it was 13 years ago. i used to be able to recite each issue as they stacked up in the commercial: “zebras, lions, monkeys, baby animals, lizards…” and the free elephants issue!

i’m sorry, but “baby animals?” that’s not a species. don’t try to con me, zoobooks. if i get that free elephants issue, i want to see baby elephant stuff in there, not in some separate stupid baby animals issue. and i’m not fooled by that mailman who personally hands the kid his zoobooks and feigns interest in armadillos or something. he’s creepy, and that kid should be running. actually, you know what, zoobooks? i’m glad i didn’t get a subscription. because by now, i’d have 13 copies of the same 12 issues of your asinine magazine, and would have been molested by a mailman. you’re just lucky i didn’t turn to a life of poaching and sexual predation from all this disappointment! but for the record, i really did want that free tiger poster.

well, at least i’ve got zoobilee zoo to show me how animals truly behave in their natural environments.

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