Wednesday, May 26, 2010

An Educational Experience

It has taken a few days, but I think I have finally recovered from attending the kindergarten field trip to the zoo, and it was definitely a good news/bad news kind of day:

Good news: Even though it was cloudy, it didn't rain. (At least not until right after we left.)
Bad news: The weatherman was wrong (again) about the temperature, so the kids in tank tops were freezing and Zoe is now the owner of yet another fleece jacket. This one has a polar bear on it, though.

Good news: We saw a tiger in action.
Bad news: It was eating action, and the vegetarian kids were a little freaked out.


Good news: Yay for monkeys!
Bad news: Apparently monkeys do some pretty great drugs, which contradicts what the DARE program is trying to teach our children.


Good news: We saw a baby orangutan swinging around.
Bad news: I had to stand next to a dad that insisted on speaking with falsetto.



Good news: There was a great photo op for a picture of Zoe with her friends.
Bad news: Four kids don't fit on a turtle.


Good news: We saw the giraffes.
Bad news: We smelled the giraffes.

Good news: We saw a buffalo. Or maybe it was a bison.
Bad news: The buffalo/bison was in the exact same spot/position/mental state as when I saw him last year.

Good news: After hearing animal sounds, we thought we were going to get lucky and see a monkey in the parking lot.
Bad news: It was just a deranged black-socks-wearing-dad making insanely loud monkey sounds at his kid while his butt was sticking out of the car door.

Good news: I remembered that lunch was going to be later than usual, so I threw a couple snacks in my purse for when the kids got hungry.
Bad news: A granola bar and a bag of fruit snacks split between four kids is not exactly satisfying.

Good news: Luckily, I knew to avoid some road construction on the drive back to the school, and therefore managed to not sit in traffic.
Bad news: The two bus drivers hauling 125 kindergartners with full bladders were not so lucky.

Bad news: Zach had a varsity tennis match and needed to get out of school early, so I had to race back from the zoo in order to get to the junior high. I got there just in time to deal with the fact that the front office completely screwed up his early release, which meant that unless I drove like a crazy person (which, fortunately, I manage to do most of the time anyway) he would be late for the tennis bus. I was so irritated with the incompetence of the attendance office that after we finally got in the car I said "fucking" for the first time in front of my kid, as in "I can't believe how fucking stupid the women are in that office."
Good news: Zach's brain was still in junior high mode, so he didn't even flinch when he heard me say it. After all, it was probably at least the 247th time he had heard it that day.

Good news: I managed to be a good person/mom and made it through an entire field trip surrounded by other people's children without having to bring a flask.
Better news: Since I hadn't brought any booze to the zoo, it meant that there was more booze at home. Or at least, there was more booze at home.

No comments: