and so it begins.

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

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

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

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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!

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

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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.

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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!

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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...

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

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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 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?"

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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.

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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.

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

More to come.