Final zoo anecdotes of 2010

I won't ever work at the zoo again. In 2010, that is.

Today produced the following interactions with zoo patrons:

--A customer told me she saw a visitor bring a seeing-eye dog into the feline house. Bad idea. In her words, "the cheetahs were hopping and the lion king was looking at lunch." Wish I could have seen it.

--Mother to her daughter: "I saw on TV this morning that spiders have fuzzy legs. That's how they stick to the ceiling."
(Child mutters something)
Mother: "Did you know that when I was your age they hadn't even invented spiders?"

--When I was sweeping near a table, a young girl asked her father what I was doing. The father turned to me and said "I don't know, what do you call that? Sweeping?" Holding my broom and taken aback by the question, all I could respond with was "Um, sweeping, yes."

--A very excited boy yelled to me, "Thanks for the food!" Then he ran over to me and proudly showed off the pressed penny our machine had made for him, pointing to a smudge he claimed was Abraham Lincoln.

And I didn't learn this today, but: did you know that the hoofed mammals are not allowed outside in the winter? It's because if an ungulate slips, he or she is much more likely to break a leg.

Happy 2011!

Social experiments at the zoo

Today I had it in my mind to play Santa Claus.

Recently, I've been going through some of my old toys to see which ones I could throw out/give away and which ones retained some sentimental value. I have a vast collection of toy cars, and after sorting through them I found a few dozen I could part with. Since the Salvation Army and most other outlets apparently don't want used toys (and who would want decades-old Matchbox cars, anyway?) I decided to find creative ways to give them away.

I took one bright green Lamborghini (pictured below) to the zoo in a gesture that was half altruism and half curiosity. If I left a toy car in the dining area two days before Christmas, in a place guaranteed to host lots of little kids, would it still be there at the end of the day? I placed it near the trash bin (where everyone inevitably goes) before 9am. Then I waited.

At 1:30, as I returned to clean up the dining area, the car was still on top of the trash bin. It had definitely been moved since 9am, but no one had taken it. Part of me was upset. Was this a judgment on the type of toys I grew up on? Were today's four-year-olds more interested in things with microchips?

My mom later said it was likely some kid did pick up the car, but was told by his/her parents that it may have been left there by another kid -- in other words, Put it back! This is probably what happened. Let it be known: people who visit the zoo two days before Christmas are not inclined to take something that's not theirs, even a toy with no apparent owner. I'll have to get rid of my old toys through a good old-fashioned rummage sale.

I brought the car home. It survived getting snatched up at the zoo; I might as well give it a reprieve and keep it around.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, everyone!

Santa is watching, kids

Three stories from today's shift at the zoo, a place that can still provide anecdotes in the dead of winter.

1) I was talking with a middle-aged employee and at one point asked if she was from the Milwaukee area. She volunteered the exact street where she grew up, and it just happened to be the very same one I am living on -- just a block down from my house, in fact.

2) A chaperone came up to the counter and bought Twizzlers for the three or four school children crowding around her. While I rang up her order, she asked me if there was anything going on with Santa today. "No," I said, "Why do you ask?" She then told me she saw Santa and his wife walking down near the caribou. I said no, the zoo's Breakfast/Lunch with Santa isn't until the weekend. She smiled and left it at that.

I wonder now if she was making the whole thing up and expected me to reply with something like, "Oh yeah, he's just here looking for some new reindeer!" That would go along with the whole caribou thing. After all, there were kids around her, some of whom might still have been the believing age. I might have played along if I'd been quick enough, or if she'd given me more of a hint. Or maybe there was really someone dressed as Santa wandering around the zoo.

3) There is still one pay phone at the zoo. I have never, ever, seen it used. Today, as I was wiping off a counter in my restaurant, a zoo employee asked if I could keep an eye on some of the school children wandering around the building. Apparently, one of them had prank-called 911 from the pay phone. I wondered not where the kids' chaperones were, but instead why these whippersnappers were so desperate to get big lumps of coal in their stockings.

Mackinac or Mackinaw?

There is a flavor at the zoo called "Mackinac Island Fudge." In recent days I've done an informal study of how many people call it Mackinack (pronouncing the hard c at the end) versus how it's supposed to be pronounced, Mackinaw. I was surprised that most people pronounced it Mackinaw as opposed to the incorrect way, which I'd been calling it. I suppose I thought the w-ended pronunciation was a regionalism. But I was wrong, because the Indians who named the place pronounced it Mackinaw. This has forced me to give some credit to the supposedly geographic-illiterate U.S., where even Wisconsin residents can pronounce a foreign-looking word correctly.

(But can they tell me what the capital of Ecuador is?)

Just a few more observations:

--I've seen more strollers in the past few weeks then I think I've seen in the preceding 22 years of my life. And I keep calling them "prams."
--A young girl came in today named Kennedy. I thought this was a strange name and wondered where it came from, and what kind of a parent would name their child such. Apparently, according to behindthename.com, Kennedy is the 110th most popular girl's name in America, right above Amanda (!).
--A different young girl, about 10 years old, came in and said the following: "Chocolate? I've never had chocolate ice cream before!" How, I asked myself, is this possible?
--Yet another young girl came in and said of her companion's choice of getting her ice cream in a dish: "You're eating ice cream with a spoon? That's funny." What is it with kids these days?

Ice Cream Happenstancery

As the zoo transitions into its Fall Hours, I have been shuttled to several different stands (no doubt to test their reactions to my awesomeness). The past few days I have been shoveling ice cream in the dairy part of the zoo. Here are some things I've noticed and experienced from my time there, and please note that some of these apply to the other stands at the zoo as well:

--At least twice a day I will hear a mother/father say to a child some variation on the phrase "you need a nap!" (the most common variation being "you're taking a nap as soon as we get home!")

--On the other hand, at the opposite end of the energy spectrum, you wouldn't believe how often kids are upset at the prospect at having to eat ice cream. "No, Mom, I don't want any!"

--This happens most often with Blue Moon: a kid will pick a flavor and her mother will give an "icky" face and explain that, honey, you won't/don't like that flavor. The mother will then usually end up picking vanilla or chocolate for the child. Now, I know it's none of my business, but I feel that on most of these occasions the mother is letting her own bias get in the way of what the child wants--she thinks Blue Moon tastes bad, so she won't feed it to her child. Not that Blue Moon isn't bad, mind you--it's a terrible, terrible flavor.

--I don't care if "ice creams" is a proper plural form, I still find it weird.

--The other day a very nice man walked up to the counter and said the zoo was one of the best he'd ever visited, and he'd "visited quite a few." He said it was very clean and the staff was very friendly. I suppose that counted as his tip.

Lastly: Please make sure you have change before you hand your money to the person at the register. Don't suddenly remember you have some after we've entered the cash into the drawer. Most likely we will try doing the calculations in our heads and you will end up shortchanged.

Encounters at the zoo

Anecdotes from the zoo, over the past several days:

Kid: "Hey zoo man! An animal is loose!"
Me: "They're the peacocks, they're supposed to be loose."
Kid: "Ewwwww!"

Zoo employee: "I've been in the kangaroo pen, they're so afraid of people."

Same zoo employee: "I've actually fed the polar bear. Did you know you can see it through the fence out back." (My stand is situated right next to the polar bear den).

Woman: "Hey, you're a zoo employee. Can you hop that fence and get me that peacock feather?"
Me (eyeing the rhinos nearby): "Ummmmm, sorry. I'm not allowed to go past the fence."

Young girl, with brother, to her dad who'd bought both popcorn, a slushie, and lemonade: "We're expensive."
Dad: "Yeah, you're expensive."

Man, to a friend: "Yeah, Gene Hackman's a funny guy. He did all those Mel Brooks films. I was watching their take on Star Wars a few days ago, that was hilarious."
Friend: "Ha ha, that was funny! That guy's helmet was like three feet long."
(Referring to "Spaceballs," and mistaking Hackman for Gene Wilder)

Kid: "Metro Goldwyn Mayer, that's it." (I swear a kid said this to me out of the blue. Maybe I misheard)

And, of course, the question you will only be asked if you work at a museum or where I do: "Where are the dinosaurs?"