I love to go to the zoo. But not on Sunday. I don't like to see the people making fun of the animals, when it should be the other way around.

We deserve the judgment more

There's something oddly sharp in this joke—Hemingway was saying out loud what most of us feel but won't admit. We'd rather not watch crowds of people behaving badly, especially when we came for something better. The zoo was supposed to be about wonder, not about watching strangers yell at captive creatures for entertainment.

But the real sting is in that last line. He's not just criticizing rudeness; he's flipping the whole power dynamic. There's this uncomfortable truth hiding there: if we're honest with ourselves, maybe the animals would have every right to judge us—the waste, the cruelty, the casual mockery. We're the ones on display for judgment, except we're the only ones who can actually create the mess we're in. It's a gentle way of saying we should probably be harder on ourselves than we are on anything else.

This still lands today because we recognize the discomfort. Whether it's social media pile-ons, how we talk about other people in public, or just the way crowds can bring out something mean in otherwise decent people—we know that Sunday feeling. We've felt the pull to be part of something unkind, and most of us don't like who we become when we do.