My Trip to the Zoo with Criminals

Today we went to the zoo for a school field trip. Surprisingly most the kids were well behaved.

Funniest part of the day I think was this smart ass kid that I had to escort to the restroom. (Since I was the only male staff I had restroom duty all day) Two or three kids went through and one was still in there obviously pooping. One of the kids (Kid O, I'll explain that one next) started making fun of kid P (I'll call him that for future stories. Just remember Kid Poop) for his ability to poop in the most disgusting places. Kid P is normally a quiet person, but something about the fresh air woke his mind and he shot back with a "we all sh*t at Lighthouse. Any public bathroom is a step up." Kid O just laughed and said "Word" and walked out. Then it was just me and Kid P. There was dead silence for about 5 seconds. Then I hear giggling coming from the stall and Kid P says, "Mr. Dan, there's a black snake in here." He started dying, I lost control, and after he washed his hands I had to high five him for that.

Now, Kid O's story. I call him Kid O because he decided it would be funny to throw his apple from his lunch to the king orangutan. Guess what? He was right. Although you're not supposed to feed the animals outside food I couldn't help but look away as he threw a second one. This zoo had one of those old style wire link fence cages. The apple wouldn't fit between the links. The baboon nibbled bites out of it, spinning the apple until it was small enough to fit through the links. He then chomped it up in one bite. Then the orang followed Kid O around the perimeter. Kid O thought it was great. He started rapping to the primate and wouldn't you know it, that orangutan bobbed his head up and down to the beat.

Next story involved a Lion and a Lioness. There was no one kid involved in this one, so I will just have to call them all Group L on this one. So you can get literally within three feet of the lions if they come to the front of the cage. The lioness roared deep enough to make your lungs tighten up. Then all the kids started roaring and yelling back at her. I look right above their heads and see a sign that says "Don't irritate me, I may spray you." Assuming spray meant pee on you, I took about 9 steps back and told the kids to stop and back off unless they wanted to smell like lion pee the rest of the day. About half of them listened.

Good ole' Kid P tried to stick his finger in every pen that said "Don't Bite." It was funny, until he was sticking his shirt through the Mountain Goat pen. Then I essentially had to poke him onto each exhibit.

The last story I have is one of justicely delicious irony. One of the hardest, toughest, most thuggilicious kids in the program wore all yellow to the zoo. Granted he didn't know he was going to the zoo, but immediately he started worrying that he was going to get attacked by animals because of his bright colors. I told him not to worry, but as soon as we entered a peacock started following us. This kid hid behind me, pulled his shirt off, handed it to me and asked if I would hold it until we passed all the wild peacocks. I thought he was going to cry. I took a peacock feather from the zoo and next time he gets out of line in my class, I'm just going to put the feather on the desk in front of him. Just to let him know that I have dirt that could make his stay at lighthouse very uncomfortable.