(My husband and I are visiting an amazing zoo in Belgium that was built on the site of an old estate. In addition to being beautiful, the zoo is relatively open and interactive: you can get up close and personal with many of the animals where safety allows. My husband and I, from the States, are marvelling at the small ditches or rows of bushes where fences and walls would normally be.)

Me: “This is incredible! They don’t have anything like this back home!”

My Husband: “Yeah, but you know why, right? Some idiot would see one of the exhibits and immediately think, ‘Dude, I can totally jump that ditch and play with the animals’. Maybe they just have more sense than that here.”

(Later, I am asking an employee about feeding times and mention what my husband had said.)

Employee: “Oh, no. We have people like that here, too. Mostly children, but they don’t do much harm. The worst is when it’s an adult. We had a fellow who got drunk and jumped into the kangaroo exhibit and began harassing the animals.”

Me: “Jeez, what happened?”

Employee: “Well, our dominant male took offense to him bothering his consort, so he pinned him down and kicked him.”

Me: “Holy cow! What did you do?”

Employee: “We let him.”