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San Diego, CA -- Margaret and Bill Nathanson thought
taking a trip to the zoo to see some adorabe pandas would
be a treat for their young son Zach. They were wrong. Dead
wrong.
The Nathanson family stood in line for hours so Zach could
get a glimpse of Bai Yun, the San Diego Zoo's adult female
panda and her newborn twin cubs. When they finally reached
the panda exhibit, the 5-year-old screamed in fear and disgust.
"First he threw a tantrum and then he used swear words
he had never used before to describe the pandas, which he
felt were ugly and grotesque," Bill Nathanson said. "No
doubt about it, Zach absolutely hated the pandas. My son is
a freak."
Hundreds of children swarmed the fence to admire the rare
pandas on loan from China and afterwards begged their parents
for panda stuffed animals, t-shirts and other souvenirs. Zach
just screamed bloody murder.
"He didn't even want a panda-shaped popsicle,"
Margaret said. "I don't understand it, he finds giant
lizards in the backyard and puts them in his mouth. I guess
he figured out that pandas are just like other bears that
maul people and can easily rip the flesh off our bones --except
they have adorable black and white heads."
Zach's mother tried repeatedly to console him and even attempted
to play a game where they would come up with a clever name
for the new cubs.
"I mentioned Gao Gao and Shi Shi, the two male pandas
that were already part of the exhibit. Then Zach said we should
name them 'horrible, dirty beasts with fangs.' I told him
that name was too long and inappropriate and he threatened
to run away from home if we didn't immediately go look at
the rattlesnakes."
"I feel like we're bad parents. We had to cancel our
vacation to China next month. He just hates those pandas."
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