Aaaahhhhh. A day at the zoo. Imagine a beautiful spring day spent with eager-to-learn first grade kids. One of these eager learners is your very own child and you get to spend the day with her enjoying some of the wonders of the animal kingdom. Sounds pretty good, doesn't it? A little sunscreen, a sack lunch, a cute spring outfit and we're ready to go!
Now add a few details. Make that 65 first grade kids (to be exact) and include a 65 minute bus ride to the zoo and back. Hmmm. Well, okay, still pretty good. I haven't been on a school bus since the state track meet my senior year in high school, but hey, it might just be fun!
Then consider that this trip to the zoo with the 65 first graders will also include twenty volunteer parents (I am one of the twenty), 3 teachers and one very controlling bus driver. Add in an itinerary that requires viewing 20+ exhibits at the zoo, snack time, lunch time and a very firm departure time. All of this needs to occur without incident in exactly 2.5 hours. All 89 persons attending this function back to the bus at 12:45 sharp! Yes sir! If you are like me, your palms are beginning to get a little sweaty. But you think to yourself, "I can handle this! I'm a big girl and I've got my big girl undies on today!"
Then you arrive at the zoo only to make the ugly realization that all of the above things will happen during the busiest day of the zoo's history, also known as School Day 2008 at the Denver Zoo. Your group of 65 +20 +3 +1 is joining approximately 5,000 other school groups 50-80 people strong from across the state. You all have the exact same itinerary, time frame and resources to get your kids through the zoo and back to the bus. At this point, I started dry-heaving (just a little), but tried to hide it well by pasting a smile on my face.
The undercover dry heaving turned to audible retching when I was told that I would be escorting several other kids through the zoo on this field trip. Two of the girls did not speak English--Spanish was their first language. One of the boys frequently experienced a low frustration threshold, meaning he often pinched and punched himself when he was overstimulated. I'm not kidding. We started late, arrived late, but need to leave ON TIME. Now only 2 hours to complete the Herculean tasks assigned, plus learn conversational Spanish and master behavior control methods for 7-year olds.
What the....?!?!?!?! Are these people insane? Is this some cruel joke? Why didn't anyone mention ANY of this before? This is ridiculous! Etc., etc.
I'll be honest. I don't remember the first 10 minutes after we arrived at the zoo.
I won't go into detail about the next two hours of my life. I can't. The wounds are still too fresh. Let's just say that I prayed more in those 2 hours than I ever have at any other point in my life. I developed blisters on my feet. I was taught by a 7-year old girl how to say ' Put your pants back on!' and ' Stop taunting the 2,000 pound gorilla!' in Spanish. I now have a deep appreciation for the many uses of bribery. I can lie to a child straight-faced and not feel the least bit guilty. But I will have you know that we weren't late getting back to the bus. Someone lost a shoe, someone else was still hyperventilating after having watched a boa constrictor eat an already dead rabbit and several of us were hypoglycemic. But we made it. Without throwing up.