The Course of Love by Alain de Botton

It’s been a long time since either of them has spent any time around animals, save perhaps forthe occasional cat or dog. Their first thought is how very strange all of the inmates look: the camel, for one, with its U-shaped neck, its two furry dorsal pyramids, its eyelashes that might be coated in mascara, and its set of yellow buckteeth. A free brochure gives them some facts: camels can go ten days in the desert without drinking; their humps are filled not with water, as common wisdom holds, but with fat; their eyelashes are designed to shield their eyeballs during sandstorms; and their liver and kidneys extract every drop of moisture possible from the food they eat, causing their dung to be dry and compact.
    All animals are distinctive, because they have evolved to thrive in very particular environments, the leaflet goes on. That’s why the Malagasy giant jumping rat has such big ears and strong hindlegs and the redtail catfish of the Amazon sports a camouflaging sandy band across its midriff.
    â€œOf course,” Kirsten interjects, “but these adaptations aren’t much use when your new habitat is actually the Prague Zoo, where you’re living in a concrete hotel room with a meal delivered to you three times through a hatch and there’s no entertainment except for the tourists. You just grow fat and tetchy, like the poor sweet melancholic orangutan, designed for a life in the forests of Borneo—and not holding up too well here.”
    â€œBut perhaps humans are no different,” adds Rabih, a little put out that a hominid should be receiving so much of his wife’s sympathy. “We’re also saddled with impulses which were probably sensible when they evolved in the plains of Africa, yet which give us nothing but trouble now.”
    â€œWhat sort of things?”
    â€œBeing super alert to noises in the night, which now just stops us sleeping when a car alarm goes off. Or being primed to eatanything sweet, which only makes us fat, given how many temptations there are. Or feeling almost compelled to look at the legs of strangers in the streets of Prague, which annoys and hurts our partners. . . .”
    â€œMr. Khan! Using Darwin to get me to feel sorry for you for not having seven wives and yet another ice cream . . .”
    It’s late on Sunday evening by the time they finally land, exhausted, at Edinburgh Airport. Kirsten’s bag is second off the carousel. Rabih has no such luck, so while they wait, they sit on a bench next to a shuttered sandwich shop. It’s unusually warm for the time of year, and Kirsten idly wonders what the weather will be like tomorrow. Rabih gets out his phone and checks. A high of 19 degrees Celsius and sunny the entire day: remarkable. Just then he spots his bag on the carousel, goes over to collect it, and adds it to their trolley. They board the bus back into the center of town just before midnight. All around them, similarly worn-out passengers are lost in thought or dozing. Suddenly remembering that he has to send a text to a colleague, Rabih reaches into the right pocket of his jacket for his phone, then looks in the left pocket, then stands up a little in his seat to check the pockets of his trousers.
    â€œHave you got my phone?” he asks Kirsten in an agitated voice. She’s sleeping and wakes up with a start.
    â€œOf course not, darling. Why would I take your phone?”
    He squeezes past her and reaches up into the overhead rack, takes down his bag, and fumbles in the outer compartment. An unfortunate reality gradually becomes clear: the phone has gone missing, and with it his communications system with the world.
    â€œIt must have been stolen somewhere in the baggage reclaim,” observes Kirsten. “Or perhaps you left it behind somehow. Pooryou! We can call up the airport first thing tomorrow and find out if anyone has handed it in. But the insurance will cover it anyway. It’s sort of