Chapter Two: A: Red Panda Q: What is NOT a panda, Alex?

I love the way the bears - and pandas in particular - walk. It is not so much a walk, as a saunter, a sashay, a wobble. They constantly look as if they are about to fall over or start dancing like Baloo (the Jungle Book people!). However, what I do NOT love is a masquerade, sirs.

A little while ago my friend told me there were pandas at the Prospect Park Zoo. I was in utter shock. My panda radar did not sense their presence. I was wary, but willing to believe. Oh how naive I was! Naturally, I went to the zoo's website for further investigation. It was what I feared most: the zoo had RED pandas, not panda pandas.

Red pandas are not, as the name implies, pandas that are red and white instead of black and white. I have no real idea what they are, I just know what they are NOT. I am sure that there is so distant relation in their Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus or Species - but I will hear none of it.

Red pandas are like shortbread without the butter, a high school dance where NO ONE cries in the girl's bathroom, a happy/normal Poe poem, a pair of heels that are comfortable... It is like Sesame Street's "one of these things is not like the other."

I know that pandas belong to the same family as raccoons, but raccoons scare the crap out of me, so I am going to ignore this fact. When you are young, raccoons seem nice and cute and friendly (thank you for your lies Pocahontas!). In reality, they are scary - especially when they are rummaging through the trash on the Bluff outside of your dorm!

For some reason, pandas have an innate Eeyore quality to them: they're just chill (not the whole suicidal thing).

I know at this point you are asking yourself if I just wrote a whole post on pandas. The truth is yes, yes I did. Don't worry I am planning a hard-hitting investigation on subways and why they always give me bruises soon.

Yours,
SW