There is a small petting zoo just down the road from our house.  I know this, because as I drive the little winding country road that passes by farms and the occasional mcmansion, there is a small hand painted sign for “Bobs Petting Zoo.”  (That’s not actually the name.  I said I saw the sign as I drove by, I didn’t say I paid attention).

It’s the kind of place that you have to call ahead to make reservations at.  It’s not a full time business and is just open when they have a school group come through.  They presumably have a few goats and chickens for you to pet while wandering around their backyard and I mentally made a note that it might be a fun outing to schedule with the kids sometime and didn’t think much more about it.

Last Spring my daughter’s preschool class decided to take a field trip there.  I was unable to go with them because of a doctor’s appointment or something, but when Audra got back home I asked her all about it.

“What kind of animals did you see, honey?”

“Well, there were donkeys and geese and llamas and tigers and turtles and…”

“Wait a minute!  Go back.  What did you just say?”

So my 5 year old daughter is claiming that the petting zoo about a mile or so from our house has a tiger, maybe two.  Now Audra is a pretty smart girl.  She knows her animals, and she’s not prone to lying, so there was a part of me that became somewhat concerned about this tiger down the road.  I mean, what kind of a cage do you think Bob has constructed for a tiger in his backyard?  I’m guessing chicken wire and two by fours.

There are lots of animals that crash through the woods behind our house.  When I can spot them, they are almost always squirrels or deer or the occasional fox, but it hadn’t occurred to me to keep an eye out for Panthera Tigris.  What exactly do you do to protect your family against such a thing anyway?  Obviously I need to stop drying meat outside on the porch and no more hanging dead zebras from the trees to ward off the mosquitoes (old family remedy).  But what else?  I’m not sure our 10 year old golden retriever who usually takes about 30 seconds to stand up is going to be much of a help.  And the biggest gun we own is the Nerf Powerblaster 3000, which is a pretty awesome gun, but I’m not sure it will stop a tiger.  Maybe I can somehow lure it into the pool and then…. Except wait!  Damn!  They can swim!  We are just totally screwed.

Anyway, a friend of mine had scheduled a visit for his family and wanted to know if we would like to tag along.  I jumped at the chance.  I was very eager to examine the tiger situation and determine the percent possibility that one day I would be washing dishes, hear a scream and then look out the window to see one of my kids being dragged into the woods by an 800 pound orange striped cat.

I turned on to the dirt road and followed it to a couple of modest homes surrounded by a number of fenced in areas.  We got out and met the owners who seemed nice and friendly and did not seem to feel the immediate need to carry a shotgun over their shoulder.  As we made our way through the various pens, feeding donkeys and goats and this one ram, whose endowment made me deeply uncomfortable, one of the kids shouted:

“Look a tiger!” 

I turned and there was a living room sized cage, but to my relief it did not hold a tiger, but an Ocelot, which is a small jungle cat about the size of a beagle.

Of course, it all made sense now.  My daughter’s not stupid, just easily confused.  She saw the Ocelot, probably heard a friend say it was a tiger and took that to be gospel.  I could now call my wife and tell her not to worry, since the last thing she said to me this morning was “If you get there and that tiger cage does not seem sturdy, I want you to get my kids out of there immediately, ok?  I’m serious!  You run to the van and drive off with the doors locked.  I’m not kidding,”  All of which was accompanied by a stern finger wag.

Of course, it is always in the calm that horror truly strikes.

“No!” shouted the kid.  “Not there!  The tiger’s over here!”

We all turned and sure enough there was a large cage with two fully grown Siberian tigers inside it. 

Of course, I was foolish to imagine that the cage was made out of chicken wire.  This was made out of chain link and was open on the top and had a nice tall tree for climbing in the middle.

I literally had no idea why the tigers were inside this cage.  I could have easily gotten out of this cage.  Heck, I think my three year old could have gotten out of this cage.  We had a schnauzer as a kid who used to escape chain link by digging under it.  I was becoming more and more inclined to follow my wife’s advice and sprint to the car.  Now, to be fair, the open topped chain link fence was about 10 feet high, but aren’t tigers known for their climbing ability?  And their ability to chew threw chain link fence like it was made of pretzels (or was that goats?)

Anyway, we continued on our tour, feeding llamas, sheep, geese and even a kangaroo, but I always kept an eye on that tiger cage.  I also noted that the same chain link they used to keep the tigers in was the same chain link deemed necessary to keep the geese from breaking free.  Something was very wrong here.  So, we concluded our tour, got back into the van, liberally applied purell to the areas that had been licked by various animals and started to drive away. 

I was now completely convinced that the tigers could easily escape at will, either by climbing up the side of the fence, or by fleeing through the gate while it was open when they were being fed, but after what I had learned about the magical principals of chain link, I was no longer worried.  Because I remembered that we had screens on our doors and windows.  Those tigers don’t stand a chance.