As we all enter into an election season filled with anger, I recently stumbled upon a powerful vaccine to combat it.
On the first day of the jury's verdict in former President Donald Trump's hush money trial, I found myself confined to a room where the only stimulus was cable TV. For most of us, passively absorbing cable news for hours is a common occurrence: airports. Auto repair shop waiting rooms. Hotel lobbies. Bars. Gyms. But for me, I'm lying on my back and can't actually get out. The sixth category is hospital rooms.
It seemed unfortunate that I didn't have my phone, laptop, or clothes on such an important day. But in the end, it was the best way to spend the day, because, in retrospect, nothing happened. No information, nothing. Not having personal electronic devices meant I didn't have to repeatedly find out that nothing happened, and still doesn't happen.
Instead, I cautiously turned the corner-mounted TV on to the highest channel, and thus I discovered a source of informational entertainment that could soothe our tormented souls. The only problem is that it is currently only available to a select few like me. This is outrageous, and why I'm writing this: something must be done.
I'm referring to the San Diego Zoo's Kids Channel, where you can see the turtles enjoying being gently stroked on the back by their zookeepers.
Well, there is a cheetah who is best friends with a dog. The two met as babies and the dog helps the cheetah build his confidence. Orangutans like to play with bubbles. A group of penguins that live on land are called “dodderers”. At the zoo, they put elephant dung in the lion's enclosure because the lions think it's funny. No commercials!
Sure, I spent 24 hours hooked up to furniture with tubes and wires and eating food delivered to my mouth, and sure, my fellow recovering patients groaned in pain, but I felt the opposite of bubbling with rage.
On a screen, kids drew what they imagined a paddlefish looks like and their drawings were judged by a paddlefish expert. (Look up a paddlefish — it's amazing!) I saw a giant sculpture of a lion balancing on one front paw and watched a mini-documentary explaining how it was made. Sick children swam with dolphins. After three years of cancer treatment, a teenager who asked for a job at a zoo through Make-A-Wish is now getting his wish.
It's geared towards kids but great fun for adults too.
Or adults, being in a hospital takes you back to a kind of pseudo-childhood. Everyone who came in brought you ginger ale, lavished praise on you for having a normal pulse, for being able to go to the bathroom on your own. But I felt good. I was doing well. They'd given me fentanyl, apparently.
I haven't seen the bill yet, but maybe that particular day I spent watching the Jagger Brothers wrestle instead of stressing out? Honestly, I don't think money can buy that.
I later learned that the San Diego Zoo Kids channel is a special closed-circuit program for hospitals with pediatric centers, so at this time it is not available to watch at home. But why should only sick children have a break? What's so special about it?
Part of the puzzle was a drug-induced dream. Kenny Loggins sponsors this channel. This is true, dear readers.
The San Diego Zoo Kids themselves had not commented at the time of writing, perhaps wanting to keep their treasures away from the general public and reserved for a select few.
That is not the world we want. Join me, and maybe Kenny Loggins, and demand access. The next time you're in an airport, a waiting room, a gym, a hospital, or the next time you have nothing to talk about for hours, a stretch of nothing, imagine walking past a game show or a talk show and finding a lizard named Floyd sticking out his bright blue tongue to confuse and scare off a predator, and watching our national blood pressure drop 20 points. We might even survive until November.
