She already knew of
my reputation, so no doubt she called me first, knowing that I would agree to
fill in, as I did. My rationale? Well, Sugarplum is in the fifth grade, and
next year she moves on to middle school. How many more field trips would I be
able to chaperone? My older daughter, Edwina (again, for you, JM) has no
interest in me stepping foot inside her school, let alone settling into a seat
on the bus and accompanying her and her friends anywhere. What if Sugarplum turned on me too? This
had the potential to be my last field trip ever. So I said yes.
Plus, the field trip was to the zoo. I love animals, not in that
creepy way, but more because I just like to see them. I drive through my
neighborhood in the early evening sometimes in the hopes I might catch a quick glimpse of a
bunny. At the zoo, animal sightings are all but guaranteed, and the possibility
that those animals might do something weird or disgusting was worth the part
where I had to go with other people’s children.
I wasn’t even
chaperoning my own child; rather, I had a group of five kids, from first grade
through fifth classes, whom I was to escort. This wasn’t just a run of the
mill zoo trip either; the kids from all five grades had been working as a group
on a research project. Each group was assigned a different animal to study, which
culminated in observing that animal in the zoo habitat and comparing it to the
wild habitat that they researched. The chaperones were then responsible for videotaping the group
making a presentation about their animals, with a script that the
group had prepared prior to the field trip. In between the observing and the
recording was some free time to look at all the other animals and a quick
thirty minutes for lunch.
The morning of the field trip, I woke up with what I thought
was a cold, complete with sore throat, sinus congestion, and the flop sweats.
Rather than also back out, I parked my car in the school lot and went inside
with Sugarplum, where I sat outside the classroom waiting for the big song and
dance. That’s when the teachers threaten the children with their very lives,
that they will behave if they ever want to see their families again, before we
boarded the buses.
I forgot that school
buses don’t have air conditioning or seat belts, except for the driver, and
what made him so special? Before we even left the school, my
shirt was stuck to my back from that dark green vinyl seat. Only about three of the
windows could be lowered, the rest having broken about fifteen years ago. I
blew my nose and tried not to complain even as my hair grew three sizes in
volume and I developed a sweat bead mustache and goatee.
Once at the zoo, each chaperone held up a sign with their
group’s animal, so that the kids could get into their groups. I was assigned
the lion, which was so much cooler than some shitty snake. One by one, all five
kids walked up to me. It reminded me a little of the Golden Ticket winners from
“Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory,” only none of these kids were going to
win anything. There were two little girls, two medium sized boys, and a girl
from Sugarplum’s class. And it was not just any girl; it was Sugarplum’s
nemesis. This is a kid who had spent most of fifth grade making sure my
Sugarplum felt badly about herself. She called her stupid and mean and fat and even
developed a nasty little anti-Semitic streak, which I’m sure made her parents
proud. I wasn’t going to let my feelings towards this mean girl get the best of
me, but I also had no real interest in helping her succeed.
Immediately the third grade boy, a rather tall kid whom I had never met, grabbed my hand as we walked into the zoo. When your kids are young,
you don’t think anything of holding another child’s hand, but that was some
time ago, and this boy’s hands were bigger than mine. We walked, hand in hand, toward the lion
habitat, the rest of the group straggling behind us.
Once there, I encouraged the children to study the space and
how the lions interact, which was pretty stupid on my part. The lions, two
young males, slept atop Pride Rock from “The Lion King,” and the rest of the relatively
small enclosure looked like someone’s overgrown backyard. There wasn’t a whole
lot of interacting going on, unless you count the occasional stretch or swatting
of flies with lion tail. After the kids burped and pounded on the glass, we
walked around the rest of the zoo, my new little boyfriend’s hand in mine.
We walked past several animal exhibits, the animals staring
at us with complete and total boredom, which was the same look the kids gave
back. After stopping at every water fountain so Sugarplum's nemesis could have a sip,
we worked our way to the farm animals. Our zoo has a small area of farm animals:
evil goats, a disgustingly frothy mouthed black pig, some fancy chickens,
and regular ducks. My little boyfriend read the sign about the chickens, which are
unusual and thus zoo worthy because they have a crown of feathers atop their
heads that they toss around like a wig when they peck at bugs in the sand.
“Plush chickens,” he read to me.
“Actually, they are
Polish chickens,” I said.
“What makes them Polish?” he wanted to know.
“I guess they came
from Poland,” I said.
“You sure do know a lot about animals,” he said, and his
hand sweat all over mine.
The other kids started screaming, which is an annoying thing
children do frequently. I looked and saw a black snake slithering its way along
the fence behind the ducks. It was a good five or six feet in length, and the
kids wanted to know if I should inform a zookeeper that the very lives of the
water fowl were in danger. I pointed out that the zoo had many black snake
crossing signs and they probably already knew about a snake in these here
parts.
The snake bypassed the ducks and went straight for the water
bowl and began to drink, not unlike Sugarplum’s nemesis.
Have you ever seen a snake drink? It’s disgusting, about as gross as the inside
of a turtle’s mouth, which looks like a portal to the Underworld if it were
conceived by Tim Burton. The snake hung its head limply into the water dish,
like a broken bendy straw. I gathered my group and headed for the picnic table
farthest away from the snake.
By the time we sat down to eat, it was around ten thousand
degrees. All the kids were actively sweating which just enhanced their natural
musk, not yet covered with more pleasant deodorant fragrances, which reminded me I forgot to encourage them to wash their hands before lunch. I sat down and sipped from my
plastic bottle of water, the cold long gone from it, when I realized Sugarplum's nemesis had nothing to drink. She ate her mushed sandwich and chips, staring
longingly at my water bottle the whole time. So I did what any other parent
would do; I offered her my bottle. I disclosed that I had taken a few sips, but
she was desperately thirsty, took it from me without a thank you, and drained
it.
Is it a good deed to share your water with a thirsty child?
Possibly. But what if the child is horrible to your daughter and you have a
cold and drank out of your water bottle first? Is it still a good deed? To me, it seemed like the
right thing to do, on many levels. Besides, how many colds have you gotten from
other people’s children?
After lunch, we went back to the lion enclosure so my group
could practice their little performance before I was to videotape them. After a
bit of food, though, they were all over the place. One of them literally tried to climb a wall. Don’t
tell me that Oscar Meyer Lunchables don’t have a little something-something in
them. A couple of run-throughs later, they were ready for me to start taping.
Now, I’m no Martin Scorsese, but even I knew these kids
needed some direction. After the first take, I had to remind them to speak
clearly and loudly, to look towards the camera and not the floor or the sky, to
not talk backstage while we are filming, and to stay still before I got motion
sickness. During the second take, which was by far the best, an old redneck
grandpa interrupted the last line of the whole thing by shouting “Lookit that
there lion!” while walking in front of the camera. The third take involved one
of the lions stretching, and then getting up to pee. The fourth take had the
remaining lion on his back atop his rock, his hind legs splayed, revealing what
was the poorest excuse for male lion anatomy. My neutered house cat could put
him to shame, but that didn’t stop him from getting aroused during the taping.
Which meant that the fifth take was of five kids flubbing their lines with a lion
boner over their left shoulder in the background. They voted on attempting a sixth and
seventh take, and by the eighth take, I said no more.
“It’s not going to
get any better, guys, so why keep trying?” I said. “Can't you edit from the
footage we have or something?”
Like I said, it’s probably my last field trip.
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