A murder of zebu.

zebu
noun
1. A domesticated ox native to Asia and Africa, having a prominent hump on the back and a large dewlap. – The Free Dictionary¹
2. Tomato, tomahto. – The Nut

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Back before my parents preferred spending their vacations in the desert, sweating 24 hours a day and calling home periodically to complain about the heat, one of their favorite means of escape was going on long camping trips. We’d stuff ourselves, the dogs, and often even the bird into our tin can of an Airstream RV, pick a spot on the map, and go there.

Anything interesting on the road, we found it. Gold panning towns; odd theme parks; lakes with good fishing; campsites that rented out unusual conveyances like paddleboats or oversized tricycles. Waterslides – oh, how I loved any place that could offer me waterslides. Caves with stalactites as far as the eye could see.

And, too far back for me to really remember, I’m told there was once a small zoo.

The zoo was nothing terribly fancy, just a few rows of pens laid out with simple fencing and a nameplate on each telling visitors what they could expect to see inside. We wandered down the line, nodding hello to various livestock who chewed slowly and stared back at us with disinterested expressions. Most of the animals were familiar and easily recognized.

Until we came to the last pen, whose nameplate read, “Zebu”.

Zebu? What the heck was a zebu? It sounded exotic. We looked excitedly around the pen for any sign of its occupant.

Apparently, what we should have seen was something like this:

Photo by Benton Greene on Flickr.

Except there wasn’t one.

What there was, was one of these:

Photo by SeanMcCann on Flickr.

Funny, we’d always called those crows.

Our mistake. Zebu it is.

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Today’s blog post was brought to you by the letter Z, the number 26, and the HolyCrapIt’sActuallyOver Challenge, AKA the Blogging A to Z Challenge.

¹ “zebu.” TheFreeDictionary.com. The Free Dictionary, 2015. Web. 30 April 2015.