A Day at the Zoo You have not lived until you've visited the zoo with a big group of fourth graders. First off there's the bus. I know that statistically school buses are the safest mode of ground transportation, but that doesn't mean I'd prefer it to any other mode, say burro for example. To sum it up, the ride was...well...loud. There's something about the acoustics on school buses that makes every sound amplified by about 300%. In addition to going deaf, I also was nauseous and light headed from the bumpy ride and smell of diesel. Still, we did all arrive in one piece, and early. Too early. The gates weren't even open yet and so the children had to wait on the bus for about 30 minutes. I now know the key to soliciting top secret information from terrorists and spies. Put them on a school bus with 50 fourth graders and drive them to the zoo. If that doesn't break them, then nothing will. Nothing save maybe forcing them to stay on that school bus full of anxious and impatient fourth graders for a half hour after it's parked. If the bad guys are still alive, you can be sure they'll tell you anything you want to know and then some. Once we got everyone into the zoo there was the matter of forming groups. There were a limited number of docents and so we made rather large groups of nine or ten children, one teacher, and two parent volunteers. My group consisted of my son, three of his most active (that's PC for hyperactive) buddies, and five girls. The other parent volunteer had a daughter among the girls. Now if anyone has ever told you that girls are just as active as boys are, they are lying. Or else they only have girls and subsequently have no point of comparison. It was hard enough to keep track of where those four hooligans (I mean boys) were let alone make sure they were behaving politely and paying attention. Of course, we had the docent from hell. Well, maybe she wasn't from hell, but she very well might be going there soon. I kept a close eye on her to be sure that she wasn't waiting for one of the young to wander away from the herd. She was old, mean, crotchety, and obviously liked to eat small children for lunch. Why else would somebody who clearly has no patience for children take a non-paying job as a docent at the zoo? Free food. It turns out all my fears about losing one or more of the kids were completely unfounded. What I should have been doing was worrying about myself. It happened in an instant. The group had just moved away from the lion exhibit and the teacher and I moved in for a closer look. When we turned back around our group was gone. It was as if the evil docent had cast a spell and poof, they disappeared. I am the first to admit that I have a terrible sense of direction. It's so bad in fact that if my instincts tell me to turn right, I automatically turn left, because my instincts are wrong about 95% of the time. I didn't think there was another person alive who could get themselves as turned around as I could, but in Aidan's teacher I met my match. Oh sure, she made a good show of it. She bravely clutched her zoo map and led the way up hills, down hills, around bends...and somehow, it all seemed familiar. Hadn't we already seen those zebras? Finally she stopped in front of a large habitat with her map unfurled in front of her, pointing emphatically at the small icon that said, "chimpanzees". "See, look here," she cried. "Right here it plainly says 'chimpanzees'. So we must be close." I looked at the map. I looked at her. I looked at the primates who looked right back at me, and if they could speak, I'm sure they would have said what I did. "Those are gorillas." Reluctantly the teacher handed me the map. I may have a terrible sense of direction, but I'm sure I can tell the difference between a chimpanzee and a gorilla! I began to wonder what she was teaching these kids--certainly not geography or biology. After awhile we passed the evil docent. She was alone. Uh oh, had she eaten the children and was now going off to her cave by the reptile house to digest? And if she hadn't eaten them, where were they? It turns out they were at the bird show. We sheepishly sneaked in and took our seats by our group. I folded up the map and whispered to the teacher, "You and I will never, ever, ever be on 'The Amazing Race' together." I don't know who was more exhausted by our adventure, the teacher and I, or the poor mother who had to watch all nine of those kids by herself. I found out later when she cornered me in the bathroom and informed me of the obvious, "Your little Aidan is a handful." Welcome to my world lady. She probably won't be telling anyone that girls are just as active as boys again any time soon. All in all we had a great time. We didn't lose a single kid, and the adults who were lost, found our way back (and it only took 45 minutes!). We had just finished our sack lunches when it started to sprinkle, proof once again that there is a God. We jogged to the buses and made our way back to school arriving earlier than expected. Another mother who'd gone with a different group looked at me wearily. Apparently I was not the only one who did not love to travel by school bus. We stood there in the rain she and I, in our post zoo daze wondering what to do with the hour before pick up time. "Coffee?" I thought she'd never ask. Posted by Susan Campbell Cross