It’s December 3rd, and it’s 80 degrees here in Hell, I mean, Florida. But that’s actually kind of cool for the state average, if a bit warm for winter, so we went to the zoo today. It’s adorable there and while I didn’t get any good picture of the animals (I prefer to just enjoy them), I snapped some of the holiday decor for the blog because it’s goddamned blogmas!
But I knew I’d find a way to rant during blogmas, and boy howdy, do I have some complaints for you.
They do bag checks and a metal wand detector sweep when you enter, which I’m all for, and it barely slows anything down. But the guy in front of me was not having it. It says very clearly before you even get to the entry line that certain things are not allowed inside, including weapons, but this mother fucker was carrying a fixed-blade hunting knife on his belt and said it was “crazy” he couldn’t bring it in. That is what this man thinks is crazy. That he’s not allowed to bring the knife he probably uses to slice open animals into a park filled with more animals. Also lots of people who expect to have a safe day at the zoo. Idiot.
Besides that guy, there seemed to be an inordinate amount of other crying babies at the zoo. When I say baby, I don’t mean toddler throwing a tantrum, I mean like, tiny thing that cannot communicate with you what is wrong with it and probably doesn’t have the shots it needs to be allowed around this many strangers. Now, I get it, babies gonna cry. It’s one of about three things they do, and that’s fine, but there was no where to go to escape it today. Especially when we got stuck on a tram with one.
Instead of hearing anything the driver said as he told ridiculously corny puns WHICH I LOVE, a way-too-little baby wet-throat-cried (admittedly better than high-pitched shrieking) for the full ten minutes of the ride while its grandma tried to distract it by pointing out the animals by incorrect name (none of them are deer, grandma, and you would know that if you could hear the goddamned driver!)
The tram ride also delivered unto us another hell: skinny person hell. The tram is made to fit four across which means Husband and I were to be sat with strangers–again, fine–but the zoo employee directed us to sit in a row with two women who really needed the whole row to themselves. Husband and I together ended up occupying a little less than a third of the seat, and to add insult to literal injury (being squished and sitting on something that isn’t made to be a seat is not fun) the woman, when realizing she needed to squash up a bit, looked at me, rolled her eyes, and grumbled about having to share “her” seat. Girl, you were in MY seat! I blame the zoo employee for not having the foresight to assign a parent and their small child to the row, but also American consumerism and a healthcare system that doesn’t recognize binge eating as the mental problem that it is (spoken from a recovery standpoint).
But you know what? All the annoying bits of the day just highlighted the positives going on in our lives: our family is exactly how we want it right now, we’re mentally and physically healthy, and there’s very little that can go so wrong in our lives that our day could really be spoiled. The day was actually great, it’s just that the awesome parts are boring for Dear Readers. I also had a super successful shopping trip to Target this morning to get the additional lights I needed, and I cooked our favorite veggie burgers for dinner, and our cats hardly fought at ALL today. Awesome, but boring!
Now, please enjoy the slightly-less-alternative, but always appropriate sounds of the dearly departed Tom Petty, a Floridian, and my imaginary dad (someday I’ll blog about that) who knew not to mention snow or the cold in his Christmas song:
A.K. Caggiano 