The road to me becoming a cranky old geezer is looking bright. I know this because I find myself feeling the urge to tell my two boys who are now in their 20s about the way life used to be. And I know I’m doing it right because I can see on their faces they don’t want to hear about it and I go right on telling them.

If you weren’t alive in the 1970s I want you to imagine a world with no internet, no phones in your pocket and only a few channels on TV. Endless entertainment carefully curated by algorithms to your personal tastes did not exist. (Are your eyes glazing over with boredom yet? Good, now you know how my kids feel — keep reading, Junior!)

I’m telling you all this so you can understand how a product back then called SAFARI CARDS could be so incredibly appealing.

Several times a day on one of those precious few TV channels, an infomercial for Safari Cards would air (pictured above). And holy balls did I want them. I yearned for them. I needed them the way Ralphie needed the Red Ryder BB Gun in A Christmas Story — only this was way cooler because Ralphie only wanted a lame sharp-shooter rifle and I wanted laminated cards with information on them.

The deal was, each month you’d be sent a set of different animal cards, each one with a picture on the front and cool facts on the back. It even came with a wonderful plastic tray so you could sort them like your mom and her recipes. (Again: there was no Netflix or Spotify. Sorting cards in a tray WAS Netflix, capeesh?)

So here’s where it gets weird: during the commercial the announcer would tease us with incredible animal facts. I clearly remember him asking the question, “DO GORILLAS SNORE?” But he didn’t tell you the answer — you had to buy the cards! It was as if they were doing it on purpose to make me send them money. Joke’s on them, I had no money. But my Mom did and you better believe I begged her for Safari Cards. They were educational, how could she say no?! Also, I clearly was not going to stop bringing it up until one of us died, so she ordered them.

An annoying kid on my block said, “Of course gorillas snore! Why else would they say it?!” Clearly this doofus was jealous that I had Safari Cards on the way and all he had was a root cellar to stock, or whatever else kids did in the 70s.

After weeks of waiting, my first set of Safari Cards arrived and the first order of business was to put to bed this mystery of gorillas snoring! Knowledge is power baby! I found the Gorilla card and flipped it over to read the following:

“Gorilla: An impressive animal which does not snore.“

Whoa. That jerky kid was wrong?! Fantastic! But also, this sentence is fairly insane.

With the clarity of adulthood, I now find it odd that there is no follow up anywhere on the card about this “fact.” Nothing about the unique sinus structure of a gorilla which might prevent them from snoring — nada. They just dropped this weird statement then abandoned it. Based on my research (googling for nearly a solid minute), there is no evidence that in the 70s people believed gorillas couldn’t snore. I honestly think it was in the commercial just to sound buzzy, whether it was true or not. If we’re just listing things gorillas DON’T do, they also don’t walk around in Count Chocula crocs. (For the record, I do and I look dope.)

Sadly, it turns out gorillas DO snore! And it’s not really surprising at all. It’s entirely possible that when this card was printed in 1975 just not a lot was known about gorillas. My guess is scientists had to finish developing Farrah Fawcett’s hair before they could move on to simian sleep habits.

Someday, 30 years from now, I like to think my sons will be telling their kids how much better things used to be. How one day their dad prattled on about some weird gorilla card in his dumb Count Chocula crocs and it was the best. And they’ll say how much they miss me.

And I’ll say, “Helloooo, I’m right here in the corner. And you forgot to feed me again!” And we’ll all laugh and laugh… and look out the portal of our space pod at the barren hellscape of Mars.

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