TRAVIS: Oh great. After six months of panda-free bliss, the National Zoo is getting two more of these giant raccoons, named Bao Li and Qing Bao, for tourists to gawk at while doing absolutely nothing. Why do we do this every few years? We say goodbye to them and it is a period of national mourning. We get them back and it’s a frenzy of joy. What is the reason for this infatuation with pandas? Let them quietly enter that dark night. This is a species that is so bad at having sex that it doesn’t seem to care about existing!
MAURA: Travis. While I recognize that you are right that watching pandas is mostly boring, I have to ask: Have you been to the National Zoo recently? I have a little boy, so I go to the zoo… a lot. The entire zoo revolves around these pandas. And without them, it’s a little sad. You get to the Asia Trail and the big climax is just a fishing cat marking its territory so much that the area around its enclosure always smells like urine.
TRAVIS: Maura, I literally ran into you at the zoo a few months ago, so questioning my knowledge of that bug prison seems like a low blow. I’ll give you this: the zoo is better when the pandas are there, because it draws all the tourists away from the other exhibits like moths from a bug zapper. Then good. But why all the fuss about an animal that literally evolved to become lazy?
MAURA: Okay, I saw you at ZooLights, which is more about Christmas displays than animals. But the very fact that pandas still exist despite the forces of natural selection is what makes them so special and exciting! That’s why we don’t go to the zoo to see pigeons or squirrels. I want to gape at the strangest creatures, the monsters of nature. Give me axolotls, tarsiers, pink fairy armadillos. (Zookeepers: If you’re reading, this is a real request. Also, bring on the invertebrate house.)
TRAVIS: Easy canned cheese probably shouldn’t exist either, but that fact doesn’t recommend it. Okay, you like weird ones. That makes sense. But let’s talk about facts. This is an animal that eats over 40 pounds of bamboo a day despite not being able to digest bamboo, which has barely any nutrients to begin with. These morons have to defecate 40 times a day as a result! However, we’re practically begging these furry beanbags to procreate, only to destroy more bamboo. Do we hate bamboo? If we want interesting animals, then I agree with a Wednesday tweet from Bulwark podcaster Tim Miller: “Stop giving the Chinese free PR for a couple of dumb animals. Send Bao back. Turn the panda village into an ocelot habitat. “Ocelots are cool and they don’t come with a quid pro quo of authoritarian assholes.”
MAURA: in the D.C. In this region, bamboo is actually an invasive species and attracts rats, so the pandas help us by eating it and digesting it poorly. They are earning their keep!
TRAVIS: IN THE ZOO I GROW BAMBOO. WE ARE INVADING OURSELVES.
MAURA: Okay, but the one thing we haven’t addressed here yet is cuteness. Travis, you own it a dog (very cute), so I know you appreciate cute and furry things. Why not pandas? They are objectively cute.
TRAVIS: Let me ask a tough question: are pandas really cute? I know that’s the party line, but every time I see them, they’re rolling in their own excrement while shoving a couple more pounds of bamboo down their throats. A drawing of a panda is cute, a cartoon panda is cute, a kung-fu panda is cute, an emoji panda is cute, but is a real panda cute? The black circles around their eyes give them a hollow and tormented look.
MAURA: His bright little eyes are cute. And they simply walk around the enclosure chubby, doing somersaults or taking sweet naps. As we’ve established, they don’t have much else going for them. This is an animal that still exists because of its superior cuteness.
TRAVIS: When I hear “small, round eyes,” I don’t think “cute.” I think “serial killer.” And his “sweet naps” always seem to me more like a drunk who passes out after a bender, in this case a bamboo bender. But hey, I admit that they can be very cute. Still, is cute worth the usual million dollars a year that zoos shell out in China to rent them?
MAURA: You’ve admitted that the zoo is better with pandas and that they’re cute, so I think I’m done here. Although I suspect you won’t admit defeat. I guess we’ll have to put it off for about a year, when we’ll probably all be talking about whether Bao Li and Qing Bao are going to have babies.
TRAVIS: Wait, I love baby pandas.
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