Saturday was Girl Scout Day at the Kansas City Zoo. Now, when you hear the words “Girl Scout Day at the Zoo”, you no doubt envision a fun, whimsical time, with adorable little girls laughing and frolicking among sweet, cuddly animals.
It was hell, I tell you. Absolute fricking hell.
The hellishness was not, in any way, the fault of the Girl Scouts. What we didn’t know before we set out for what we believed would be a cuddly day of frolicking was that it was also
1) a day when all residents of Kansas City got into the zoo for free and2) Meet Curious George Day.
Apparently, every single resident of Kansas City heard about Free Zoo Day and decided, collectively as a city, to descend upon the zoo. And we all know that fans of Curious George are drunken party animals. The zoo was an absolute madhouse. For those of you familiar with the Kansas City Zoo, I will tell you this: We were there for over three hours and didn’t make it much farther than the carousel, which is right up front.
After about 15 minutes, right around the time we were fighting our way through the drunken mob to meet Curious George, I could tell that Jay was on the verge of throwing himself into the polar bear enclosure. I told him that it was too late for me, but he should save himself.
Jay fled the zoo and went directly to the nearest Buffalo Wild Wings. No doubt the staff realized he was a zoo refugee and granted him sanctuary, nursing him back to health via televised football games and beer.
I’m sure at some point, maybe in between bites of tasty wings or during commercial breaks, Jay felt kind of bad. At least, that’s what I told myself while I was spending 45 minutes in an unmoving lunch line located right in the middle of the World’s Largest and Scariest Bee Population. Did I mention that my child becomes completely Rain-Man-Won’t-Get-on-the-Plane hysterical when she sees a single bee? Good times.
But in the end, WCK earned a patch for her time at the zoo, and Jay returned from chicken-wing paradise to pick us up. I got into the car and said, “Let us never speak of this again.”
I’m wondering if the Girl Scouts are planning another day at the zoo next year. May God have mercy on their souls.
