Witz Pickz: ZooQuarium!

I've been saving this up for a special day and if today isn't that day, I don't know when it will be. I've officially survived a move and two days of 6am wakeups on a floor with assorted blankets (including a super fun dream this morning when I dreamt that I was woken up by people outside my house at 4:30am to help them move-- then I woke up and it was 5am...) and now the weekend is finally finally finally here. Woot.

When I was in Cape Cod for J-Kow and K-Rey's wedding, we thrice drove past a myserious building with a single sign advertising its existence: "Zooquarium." ZOOQUARIUM! IS IT A ZOO? IS IT AN AQUARIUM?? WHO KNOWS!? We were unable to discern any actual details, because a) we didn't have any time to spare and b) the building was the zoo/aquarium equivalent of a men's bath-house. A giant warehouse, no windows, vinyl siding, painted tan, with a long driveway and a marsh surrounding it. I was pretty sure that if I knocked on the door three times and slipped five bucks through the grate, then I was gonna get blown by a seal. Either that or it was the worst mafia front ever. Like, they bought the building and had to say what it was besides, "Meth Lab" and managed to come up with "Zooquarium," because one of the higher ups wasn't so bright and no one wanted to correct him.

I finally decided that I had to find out what was behind those metallic doors. In my mind, the place was a complete riddle-- full of mistreated animals in ridiculous situations. As The Color Thiel Part 2 said, "What, do they like, put cheetahs in water?" I couldn't honestly say no. Maybe the schtick is simply to mess with animals and place them in unsuitable habitats. Maybe monkeys are in sand pits and fish are in trees. Maybe the king of the jungle ain't so mighty roaming the arctic tundra. Maybe penguins ain't so cute when they're sweating like crack addicts in the rainforest (though Surf's Up would argue vehemently against this point). The title should just be, "Zooquarium: Come See Llamas On Waterslides." I'd do it-- in a second (wasn't that the plot from Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken 2?).

I needed to know what this place was so I searched online. The first thing I'll tell you is that when searching for "zooquarium" you don't need to write anything else-- there's only one. The World's Largest, Longest Operated, and Lone Zooquarium is on Cape Cod, Massachussetts. The website is not entirely unlike the building. The header for the page that usually says things like, "ESPN" or "Witz Pickz" simply says, "zoo." Like that. Lower case. "zoo." The slogan also skirts the issue, simply saying, "It might just be more fun than the beach!" I understand that Cape Cod is a location with beaches, but beaches aren't necessarily fun so much as relaxing. They don't even take a stand and say, "More fun than the beach!" They're basically just saying, "You might enjoy this more than the beach if you aren't that into beaches and are really into animals or whatever it is that we have!"

From what I can gather, there is a petting zoo farm style and an aquarium with "fishes, and lobsters and crabs..." which sounds suspiciously like what you find in the ocean, very nearby. Then they mysteriously say, "Don't forget to wink at the lobster...he may just wink back!"
....
Am I gonna get banged by a lobster at the zooquarium? The whole place is full of mysterious inside joke-like references and one liners that I just don't get. Without ever really telling me what the zooquarium is all about, they seem to push simply how FUN it is. Check this out:

"What's the most important part of the zoo???
Why it's having FUN, of course. Why don't you click on the peacock below and then print it out so you can color?"

Do they think that 6 year olds are cruising their website? Even if that was possible, they'd have to spell ZOOQUARIUM. Does the fun at the Zooquarium rely mostly on printable at-home activities??

The answer is no. Checkout these special events that I can't believe I have to miss:

"August 30, 31 -- All Reptiles, all the time." Yup. They fuckin' did it. All of em. All the time. Start running, but it won't do any good. Reptiles. Everywhere. The Zooquarium claims to have the full set.

"October 31 -- Boo at the zoo! What hapened to ZooQuarium? It’s haunted for the day!" First, let's note that it's not THE ZooQuarium. It's simply ZooQuarium. Which means I can officially nickname somebody ZooQuarium. Someone sweaty and out of control. Aw crap-- it's me when I drink red bull. I'm ZooQuarium. Anyway, I love that ZooQuarium acts like people frequent the place so much that they'll be baffled when they go on Halloween. "What the hell happened to ZooQuarium?? This isn't what it's normally like!" Here's the pitch, "Kids are sure to enjoy wearing their costumes to the zoo and getting some treats as well as a few tricks along the way." Kids are CONSTANTLY wanting to do OTHER things while at the zoo. Forget seeing monkeys, they wanna see monkeys while dressed as Spiderman! I wanna know what the liability is like when a "Ninja" decides to battle a tiger.

For real answers, I'll just have to check the "Photos" and "Zoo History" links right? NOPE! Because they are conveniently, "coming soon!" Shocking. Regardless, I can't wait to get back to Cape Cod so I can go. I imagine it will be a lot like in Beverly Hills Cop III when Eddie Murphy sneaks behind the scenes at Wonder World and finds the counterfeit money ring. If nothing else, a ZooQuarium death is probably a good death.

Rumors of My ZooQuarium Death Were Greatly Exagerated,
Witz