“Oh hey! Animal cracker? Oh look, monkey! And he has a little hat and little pants. The monkey is the only cookie animal who gets to wear clothes, you know that? You have the sweetest smile I’ve ever seen … So, I’m wondering, do the other cookie animals feel sorta ripped? Like, is the hippo going ‘Hey man! Where are my pants? I have my hippo dignity!’ And, you know, the monkey’s just ‘I mock you with my monkey pants!’”
“Some kids are always bragging about their grandpas in heaven. What are they gonna say when I tell ‘em my grandpa’s in the zoo?”
“Wait a minute, wait a minute, dad. You mean you knew about this? You knew about this and you didn’t tell me?”
“That’s what death does, rips the ground right out from under your feet, makes you wonder if it was ever there to begin with, but it was and it will come back.”
“Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?”
“My kind don’t usually breed! It will be like me, I am convinced of it—how can I forgive myself, when I knowingly risked passing on my own condition to an innocent child? And if, by some miracle, it is not like me, then it will be better off, a hundred times so, without a father of whom it must always be ashamed!”