...and another! what are the chances?

Creature Feature is an exhibit where you can touch tide pool animals (sea stars, etc). Next to Creature Feature is the Culture Kitchen, a functioning space in which the biologists grow artemia, aka brine shrimp, aka sea monkeys to be fed to the fish. The artemia are growing in upside-down pyramid shaped plastic containers. Since there are billions of orangey-pink artemia in the water, it just looks like orangey-pink water.

Kid at Creature Feature: That's urine.
Kid's father: What?
Kid: It's urine!

finally, a pee story.

I am incredibly sad to say I was not present for this. A coworker of mine was facilitating the touch-a-shark exhibit, a knee-height pool about 6 feet across and 20 feet long, containing about 20 small sharks. A group of special needs people, who were high-school age or perhaps slightly older, and their chaperones came into the exhibit and began touching sharks without incident. Then, without warning, one of the kids inserted his thumb into the waistband of his sweatpants, yanked them down a few inches, and began urinating into touch-a-shark. My coworker's response was to yell "Hey! Stop him! You gotta stop him right now!" at which point the chaperones stopped him. It is still unclear whether the boy finished his business or was forced to stop mid-stream. There were families present, and children were quickly whisked away by their shocked parents. The exhibit was closed for about an hour so that water quality could be checked and so that the water filters could work their magic.

This, as far as I've heard, is the only time in the Aquarium's 17-year history that this has happened, and I'm sorry I wasn't there to see it.

identification is fun.

Older Foreign Lady: These sea animals?
Employee: Yes... [unsure, forced smile]

********************

A 70's-ish woman is standing with her daughter, pointing at various animals as they swim by.

Woman: [points] Ooh! A shark! [points] Ooh! A Turtle! [points to large school of fish] Are those real?

********************

Our "African" exhibit features hippos, dozens of free-flying birds, and an African Crested Porcupine, which hides behind a log (it's nocturnal), has 3-foot quills, and weighs about 40 pounds.

Woman: [points at porcupine] Ooh! Look at that big bird!

********************

At Touch-A-Shark

Woman: These alligators?

********************

The aquarium is full of interactive things for small kids- buttons to push and levers to pull. One such exhibit requires that you push a red button. Doing this lights up a picture of a Foxface Rabbitfish, which is venomous. In the picture, the Rabbitfish has hypodermic needles in its body, pointing out through its fin spines, to show you that its spines and venom sacs function like a needle injection.

6-year-old boy: [pushes button] Look! Drugs!
The boy pulls on his chaperone's sleeve and gets her to push the button.
Chaperone: Yep, Drugs!

Sharks: big, stinky, beefy, feline.

The aquarium features a big, fake, great white shark hanging from the ceiling. It's about 15 feet long.

Little Girl: [pointing] How old is that shark?
Employee: It's actually just a fake shark.
Little Girl: 30 minutes long!
Employee: You mean how long is the shark? I don't know, but it's big!
Little Girl: 30 minutes!

********************

At Touch-A-Shark:

Woman: Will they smell like fish if I touch them?
Me: Will they smell like fish if you touch them?
Woman: Yeah.
Me: ...no?

********************

At Touch-A-Shark:

High School Girl: You feed the sharks steak?
Employee: Steak? Did you say steak?
HSG: Well, I didn't know if you fed them meat, or just, like, fish....
Employee: We feed them fish, which is still meat....
HSG: [blank stare] Ya never know!

********************

At Touch-A-Shark:

Woman: Are these really sharks or are they catfish?
Employee: Uh, they're definitely sharks, I promise.

mermaids, back-breathing, and whales.

A woman approaches, her kids are slightly out of earshot. She's dead serious.

Woman: Excuse me, do you have mermaids?
Employee: What?
Woman: Do you have Atlantic mermaids?
Employee: Um... no?
Woman: Oh. [To kids] Sorry guys, I really wanted you to see what a real mermaid looked like.

********************

Man seeing bubbles come out from under a penguin's thick feathers underwater: Hey! Do they breathe out of their backs?

********************

A man with a thick Indian accent:

Man: You have big whale last time! Big whale!
Employee: Sir, we actually don't have whales here. Maybe you saw our large sharks?
Man: Yes. [Smiles] Big whale.
Employee: No whales.
Man: So big, the whales.

a cute one.

There is one biologist at the aquarium in charge of culturing (growing) and caring for the jellyfish. We have three windows, side by side, that show the three main stages of jellyfish development. The biologist was showing a little girl the window containing the very young jellies, and then moved over to the window showing the even younger, first-stage jellies.

Biologist: [pointing to the exhibit] And this is where the baby jellyfish come from!
Little Girl: Is that the hospital?

recognizing shark species.

At Touch-A-Shark:

Woman: Are these sharks going to get bigger?
Me: These sharks are juveniles, so they're going to jet just a little bit bigger.
Woman: Oh, Juveniles. Is that what kind they are?


********************

Also at Touch-A-Shark:
Little Asian Boy: [Points at Smooth Dogfish shark] Those... those sharks... th... they weird me out... [uses fingers to give himself slanty eyes] because they're Asian.

snacktime.

The other day, I watched a family of three (father, mother, child) sit down on a bench in the aquarium, open a plastic bag, remove three small ears of corn on the cob, and eat them as a snack.

sleeping whales, trick sharks, and man-eaters.

Woman, running inside after seeing a seal sitting at the bottom of the tank at the clearly labeled "Seal Shores" exhibit: I think there's something wrong with one of your whales!

********************

In the Shark exhibit, just before a shark talk.

Man: Is this a show where they're going to be doing jumps and flips and stuff?
Me: No, sir. You're thinking of dolphins. These are sharks.
Man: So these don't do that?
Me: No.

********************

For some reason, I thought that the general public had learned by now that sharks are not "man eaters" that are "out to get us." Oh well.

At touch-a-shark (which contains 3-foot, bottom-feeding sharks)

Woman: We can touch these?
Me: Yep. This is touch-a-shark.
Woman: They're sharks! They'll bite!
Me: No, not all animals bite. Not all dogs bite, right? These guys just bite their food.
Woman: Well, we're food for them, right?
Me: No... [I go on to explain how that's a misconception, sharks eat fish, etc.]
Woman: Wow! You learn something new every day!

proper grammar.

We have three touch exhibits at the aquarium. Each of them closes for 15 minutes per hour. This gives the animals a chance to de-stress, and, if need be, to be fed. "Creature Feature" is the exhibit where you can touch tide pool animals, like sea stars, crabs, anemones, and prawn (big shrimp). The prawn tend to walk around on the bottom. Compared to the other animals in the exhibit, they are by far the quickest and most visibly active.

A woman approaches. She is holding an infant and accompanied by two small (maybe 2 or 3 year-old) children.

Little Girl: We can touch 'em?
Me: Not right now. They're taking a rest now, and you can touch them in a few minutes.
[The little girl notices the prawn walking around on the bottom of the exhibit.]
Little Girl: [pointing] These is woke.
Me: What's that?
Little Girl: These is woke.
Me: I... what?
Woman: [Irritated] She said "These is woke."
Me: You mean... like... these are awake?
Woman: Yeah.
Me: Yep. Yep, they are.

amish and the shark cage.

On Jewish holidays, the aquarium gets hundreds of Orthodox Jewish families visiting. On these particular days, the number of Jewish families (who are easily recognizable by their religiously-influenced clothing) greatly outnumber the non-Jewish families.

After I perform a talk about the hippos, the (mostly Orthodox Jewish) crowd disperses, and we all jam up near the exit.

Non-Jewish woman: Excuse me, are there always this many [whispered] Amish people here?

Yes, she only whispered the word "Amish." I simply replied "No."

********************

We have a room that plays a video of footage taken from inside a shark cage. The shark bumps the cage on the video, and the floor moves to simulate the sensation. This is known as our "Virtual Shark Cage." It is labeled as such.

A woman enters the cage.

Woman: Are we going under, or is this a movie?

i met a (legitimately) crazy guy.

A wild-eyed man walks up to touch-a-shark and speaks in a voice that is just shy of shouting.

Man: Is this a special touching place?
Me: Yep. This is touch-a-shark.
Man: And you can touch 'em?
Me: Yep.
Man: You can touch 'em?
Me: (pause) Yes.
Man: You work here?
Me: Yes I do.
Man: And these won't bite me?
Me: Nope. They don't bite.
Man: You sure you work here?
Me: Quite sure.
Man: I'm (name). [reaches to shake my hand]
Me: [shaking his hand] I'm Matt.
Man: Matthew! Can I call you Matthew?
Me: Sure, that works too.
Man: I should introduce myself. I'm (full name). You may have heard of me.
*Note* I have not heard of him.
Me: Uh. Maybe.
Man: Yeah. You may have heard them talking. It gets around. Well, I'm crazy, I need to get back to the box!
Me: Uh, alright! See you!

I later found out that there was a group of adults from some institution there that day. So he probably was, in fact, crazy.

and so it begins.

Some of these are a few months old, but have just been relayed to me by my coworkers.

*********************

Woman at Touch-A-Shark (to her son): Ooooh! Look, Michael! Stingrays! These are stingrays, right?
Employee: Nope. Sharks.

********************

Employee: Hi folks, this is Dash, one of our Diamond Back Terrapins.
Guy: Oh cool! What's the English name for it?

********************

Note: The aquarium has a 760,000 gallon exhibit called the "Ocean Realm." It has very big (movie screen sized) windows.

Man: Question for you.
Employee: Go ahead.
Man: Ok, the animals in ocean realm are just images, right? My wife and I have a bet going and I told her that they were just a movie playing because those animals be too big to be real.
Employee: Sir, we're an aquarium. We have real, big fish.
Man: Oh, damn. Honey, you were right!

********************

Woman at outdoor penguin exhibit: Can't they fly out of here and escape?

********************

The scene: A father, who has taken his little boy's shirt and shoes off, is dangling his barefoot daughter over the Touch-A-Shark exhibit, presumably to let her swim/wade in it.

Employee: Sir! Please take her foot... sir! Fingers only, this is a touch exhibit.
Man: Oh. So we can't...?
Employee: No.

********************

Our touch exhibits close for a 15-minute break every hour, so the animals can rest and be fed, if need be. To indicate that the exhibit is closed, we close off the entrances with stanchions.

The scene: A woman drags her two kids with her as she ducks under the stanchions and into the exhibit area.

Mother [to employee]: Ok, we're here! What do we do now?
Employee: Um, we're closed for another 12 minutes.
Mother: [Stops smiling] Oh... really? Hmmm.
Employee: Yeah, sorry.
Mother: [Getting angry] There isn't anything that says you're closed.
Employee: The blue line across the entrance? That means we're closed.
Mother: Oh! I didn't even see that!

********************

The name "hippopotamus" means "water horse."

Man: Do you have sea horses here?
Employee: Yes... [about to explain where]
Man: [interrupting] ...is that the same as a hippo?
Employee: No....
Man: Oh yeah, I'm thinking of water horse...

********************

Woman looking at moray eels: Eeew! Those look like the fish from that movie! I think it was "All Dogs Go To Heaven."

********************

Note: Scorpions do not live underwater.

Man: [pointing at Turban Snail shell] Is that shrimp dead!?
Employee: What?
Man: But it's on its side! Look!
Employee: No, that's a....
Woman with Man: [pointing at a Prawn] Scorpion!?
Employee: No.
Man: So this [points at Turban Snail] is a shrimp, and that [points at Prawn] is a scorpion!?

More to come.

playing catch-up, part 3.

Recounting all the past events that have happened in the last year and a half. In no particular order. Part 3: a quick story.

At the aquarium, there are three windows that show the developmental stages of jellyfish: the polyp stage, in which the "baby" jellies are like tiny little anemones attached to substrate (a rock, etc.); the ephyra stage, where the jellies break off into eighth-inch swimming mini-jellies; and finally, the medusa stage, which is the adult jelly stage that most people recognize. There are placards describing each stage next to each corresponding window.

On this particular day, there was a school group in the touch-a-jelly area. All the kids were touching the jellies, and one of the chaperones had stopped to look at the jellyfish life cycle placards. I watched her as she moved from window to window. She was probably in her late twenties or early thirties, and, presumably, at least partially responsible for the education of these children. When she came to the last placard, describing the medusa stage, she read aloud, with much hesitation and difficulty:

"This is is the final stage of the jelly's life... the me... med... medusa stage. In this... stage... the jellies can take up to two months to reach ma... mach... may-tyurrr..."

The next word was "maturity." She didn't know it. She gave up, turned around, and walked away. I was flabbergasted, amused, and deeply saddened at the same time.

More to come.

playing catch-up, part 2.

Recounting all the past events that have happened in the last year and a half. In no particular order. Part Two.

At the aquarium, you can touch shrimp. For some reason, people have a hard time identifying shrimp. When looking at the touch-a-shrimp tank, people often say interesting things. Such as:

"Ooh! Baby lobsters!"
"They bugs?"

and my personal favorite:

"What these be? Crickets?"

People also look at the touch-a-lobster tank and say:

"They bugs?"
"I ain't touchin' no crabs!" (I heard that one a lot)
"Are these seahorses?"

Recently, we replaced the lobsters in the touch-a-lobster exhibit with small sharks. Unfortunately, the management had not taken the "Lobster" sign down yet. A woman looked at the shark and said, "That must be a lobster out of its shell."

And the most impressive of all, at the touch-a-jellyfish exhibit (mind you, people are looking squarely at jellyfish), someone asked:

"What kind of sharks are these?"

********************

The aquarium features a movie theater where people can watch entertaining and/or educational movies. Both the "front desk," entrance to, and the theater itself are inside the aquarium.

A man walks up to the employee at the theater desk.
Man: Excuse me, where's the aquarium?
Employee: You're in the aquarium.
Man: Yeah, but where's the aquarium?
Employee: All around you. You are inside it. Right now.

********************

Kid: Mommy, I wanna see the hippos!
Mom: Psssshhht. They don't have hippos!
Me: Yes we do.
Mom: What? Where would you have hippos?
Me: Over there. [points in general direction of hippo exhibit]
Mom: Oh. I've been lying to my kids all day.

********************

Person at the top of the main staircase: Excuse me, do these stairs go downstairs?

More to come.

playing catch-up, part 1.

Recounting all of the past events that have happened in the last year and a half. In no particular order. Part one. Here we go.

Me: Folks, you can touch any shark you like, along its back, with your first 2 fingers.
[40-something year old man proceeds to reach under the sleeping shark and lift it up, almost out of the water]
Me: Sir! 2 fingers. Please do not pick up the sharks.
Man: Oh. We can't pick them up?
Me: No.

This happens at least once a day. And I am only at the shark-touching exhibit for an hour or two per day. So let's think about how many times these sharks have been picked up.

********************

Some back-story: we have 2 female Hippos. There are also hundreds of African Ciclid fish in with the hippos.

[In the shark exhibit]
Father, slightly apart from his family: Excuse me, those back there, those are hip- hippopotamuses?
Me: Back over there? Yes, we have 2 female Hippos.
Father: Those are the big fish in there?
Me: Big fish?
Father: Yes, the big fish in there.
Me: You mean all the colorful African Ciclid fish?
Father: No, those big grey things. The big fish- those are the Hippos?
Me: Well, those are hippos. But they're not fish.
Father: They aren't? But they can stay underwater like that?
Me: Yep. They hold their breath.
Father: Honey! They're not fish!

********************

Kid: Oooh! Look! Starfish!
Me: Where?
Kid: Right there!
Me: That's not a starfish.
Kid: [confused] Yes it is.
Me: Is it shaped like a star?
Kid: Yes....
Me: Is it a fish?
Kid: Uh...
Me: Nope. So "starfish" doesn't make any sense. So we don't call them that anymore. We call them sea stars. That's the real name.
Kid: Oh. Hey, mom! Come look at the starfish!

This also happens multiple times per day.

More to come.

A brief introduction.

Hello. First and foremost, I am not quite sure what I can legally say on this blog. Consequently, I am going to leave out the proper names of people and places. That being said, I am Matt (is that really my name? Who knows?) and I work at a certain aquarium just outside of Philadelphia. At my job, I deal with the public all day long. My coworkers and I facilitate touch exhibits, bring out and talk about animals, and perform educational shows both as ourselves and as characters. While performing these tasks, we talk to people, interact with people, yell at people, and get to watch folks do stuff while they think we're not looking. This blog will serve as a record of all of the crazy stuff my coworkers and I witness. And we've witnessed some crazy stuff. Let me assure you that all of these stories/occurrences are real. And they haven't all happened to just me. I am going to take it upon myself to collect stories from my coworkers and record them here. So the people in the posts will be labeled as "employee" and "guest" mostly.

I've been working at the aquarium for a while now, and I've amassed quite a few stories. So right off the bat, I'm going to be posting a lot of them, to sort of catch up. After that I'll be posting new stories as they happen. Some may be brief descriptions, some may be a dialogue, but let me assure you that they all really happened and that they are all funny.

And let me say this: a lot of these are funny. But a lot of them also make me really sad. These vignettes both make my day and assure me that people, as a whole, are idiots.