A duck walks into a bar with a bear, a moose, and a weasel. All his friends ditch him after a round. Bartender says, “I guess the bill’s on you.”
Reader, I imagine that you groaned. To make it up to you, here’s another one:
Polar bear walks into a bar and says, “I’ll have a PBR … … … and some peanuts.” Bartender asks, “What’s with the big pause?” Bear says, “I dunno. I’ve always had them.”
OK, OK. I know. That was awful. But here, one more. It’s better, promise:
Grasshopper walks into a bar. Bartender says, “We got a drink named after you.” Grasshopper says, “You got a drink named Cedric?”
::pause for more grumbling or hysterical laughter::
Animals don’t just drink in jokes. They get schlitzed in the wild, too. Though some accounts are mired in myth, it’s been proven that beasts big and small booze it up. Many times, the drunkenness is accidental, but not always. Here’s a few of the ways that party animals catch the brown bottle flu.
Most likely to puke on your mom’s patio: SquirrelsSquirrels are floofy-tailed cute-monsters. They are also the animal you’re most likely to see wasted in your yard. Squirrels get trashtastic from ingesting fermented crab apples, squash, magnolia petals, and cherries. There are plenty of YouTube vids out there where the little shmoes get so funked up that they can’t even teeter up a tree.
An occurrence in Worcestershire, England, proves that squirrels aren’t satisfied with only outdoor drinking. The owner of the Honeybourne Railway Club found a squirrel staggering out from behind a box of chips at his pub. In the night, the squirrel had learned to turn on the taps, gotten snockered, broke glassware, and spilled $400 of beer all over the floor.
The unpredictable climber: Moose The first inebriated celebrity moose writ into history was the pet of 16th century astronomer Tycho Brahe. Brahe, who had part of his nose cut off in a mathematics-induced duel, adored his moose so much that it lived inside and dined with him. Other nobles were intrigued and the moose became a party guest at neighboring estates. Unfortunately, one evening out, the moose got so beer-blitzed, he fell down a flight of stairs to his death.
::tips a 40 in honor of Brahe’s moose::
Sweden and Norway have a plethora of hooved friends who get hammered every autumn after eating fallen, fermented apples. In recent years, addled moose have been stuck in trees, had threesomes in public, destroyed playgrounds, and invaded shoe shops. The public say the moose are drunk. Scientists say that the only thing they’re sure of is there has to be a better explanation than that.
Always has to go to the ER: BirdsHeather is the gal who weighs 90 pounds and insists on drinking like she’s a sumo-sized biker. Heather always ends up using a pizza slice as a pillow or going to the hospital for alcohol poisoning.
Bohemian waxwings are the Heathers of the wildwood. In fact, you can’t only blame waxwings on ruining the party, many birds get shmammered. Which sounds kind of adorable: Wobbly birds pecking berries that have been fermenting all winter long, but the poor dears have one berry too many and their flying in circles turns to WHAP! Collision with a wall. Night ruined. Heather-friend has to go to the hospital … again. Stupid rowan berries.
Jerk who never brings a six-pack to the party: Vervet monkeysSt. Kitts is a Caribbean island with gorgeous beachfronts and bold monkeys. The Vervet monkey came to St. Kitts about 300 years ago and developed an ethanol interest through eating fermented sugar cane left in rum industry fields. Fast forward a few hundred years and these little furbags steal drinks from tourists at oceanfront bars and restaurants.
If humans needed one more example of how close we are to primates, the Vervet monkey’s drinking habits mirror our own. Monkeys considered teenagers drink more than adults, about 5 percent of them are alcoholics (Americans are at 7.2 percent), and there are even teetotaler monkeys that refuse spirits and topple an alcoholic drink in favor of the soda pop next to it.
The one to eat out your entire fridge: BearsIt ain’t surprising that people soak gummy bears in vodka considering that real bears often get soaking sloshed, too.
Bears will eat your everything: Your garbage, your BFF, the ham sammich sitting on your steering wheel. They’re notorious for slamming copious amounts of beer on campsites and shaky-legging it through buzz-town. Apparently, they prefer Rainier over Busch beer – if they can’t get their hands on fermented apples.
The one who says, “No, really, I’m OK to drive”: Pen-tailed treeshrews and fruit batsIf a fruit bat tells you she’s alright to drive, she’s probably BS-ing you. She’ll recite a 2009 study where scientists got fruit bats drunk. They put the drunk bats in a maze full of dangling chains and other hurdles. The drunk fruit bats used their sonar and found their way through the obstacles as efficiently as the sober fruit bats did.
I still wouldn’t give her the keys.
Meanwhile, the pen-tailed treeshrew is such a raging alkie that it boozes every single night for about two hours. Drink of choice? Fermented nectar from the bertam palm tree that has a 3.8 percent ABV. The treeshrew has a metabolism that allows it to use the nectar as a main food source without getting blotto.
Wouldn’t give her the car keys, either. Everyone’s walking home.
Pees in your hallway or ice cube tray: HamstersFluffy little ham-hams have a bad habit of running on their spinny wheels and relieving themselves at the same time. PEE EVERYWHERE – and that’s when they’re sober.
When in the wild, Syrian hamsters, otherwise known as golden hamsters, stockpile fruit and berries to survive the winter. As the fruit ages, it ferments. That doesn’t stop the fuzz-wubblies from gobbling it down. Because of this, Syrian hamsters have developed livers five times as big as other hamsters. They have evolved to process alcohol and, if there is a choice between liquor and water, they choose the liquor.
Wrecks your house: ElephantsElephants have gotten a bad rep as the SOBs who will steal your beer, trample the village while crunked, then pass out in an inconsiderate thoroughfare.
Many scientists, plus National Geographic, call drunken elephants a myth … and yet, as recently as 2012, it was reported that 50 elephants snatched up over 130 gallons of brew from Dumurkota, an east India village. They then trampled huts and shops alike while they searched for more Mahua, a local vodka punch.
Shows up with coke to a beer party: CaterpillarsThe coca tussock moth lives mostly in Colombia and Peru. This beige little dude lays its eggs on coca plants. When the eggs hatch, the larvae eat the bloody hell out the plant leaves.
You are correct in thinking that a coca plant is what cocaine is made from. The coca tussock moth can demolish an entire field so quickly that the Colombian government is interested in using them as a weapon against illegal drugs. Scientists are researching if a large release of moths is possible without wreaking havoc on biodiversity. The government wants to make sure that the blow fiends will only eat the two coca species used in cocaine production and not any of the 155 other species.
Worst friend ever: BeesIf you’re a bee that spent Sunday afternoon sipping fermented tree sap while watching football, don’t bother going home till you’re good and sober. Doesn’t matter that you found the perfect tobacco tree that had the nicotine sap you loved or the citrus tree with the caffeine sap that makes you glowy, don’t go home.
Hives like to maintain law and order. Each hive has a guard bee at its entrance. Think of him as a bouncer. Tipsy bee, if you try to go home, the guard bee will shove you away from the hive. If you repeatedly try to enter the hive three sheets to the wind, this dude will GNAW YOUR LEGS OFF.
Drunk bee, your friends suck. Sleep it off in a tulip. But hey, if the guard had let you in, you could’ve infected the hive with drunk honey production … paralyzing everyone. So maybe you suck, too.
