at touch-a-shark.

The following encounters take place at touch-a-shark, where you can touch sharks.

Dad: See, honey, this is the sharks' house.
Little Girl: If this is their house, where's their TV?

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

Man: What is dees? Sharks?
Employee: Yes, Bamboo sharks.
Man: How much do one of dees cost?
Employee: Um, we don't sell them here. You can't buy them.
Man: [pulls out camera and takes a picture of the sharks] I'ma get me one of dees fishes.

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

Man: Do these sting?

an apology.

I haven't updated this thing in forever. I've been riding my bike to work, and therefore haven't been able to easily carry the notebook in which these quotes are written. I drove today. The book got brought home today. The blog gets updated today.

confusion abounds.

On the second floor, there is an interactive exhibit where little kids can crawl through a hole in the wall and into a small room. This interactive also happens to be near the men's room.

Father, seeing the men's room sign near the interactive: Aww, it's a tiny little men's room!

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

Stingrays (and sharks, and sawfish...) use a hole called a spiracle to breathe. This works as a pump, opening and closing, pushing water over the animal's gills. On stingrays, it is very large and located directly behind their eyes. A very concerned grandmother and grandson approach.

Grandma: Excuse me, we have to ask why you removed the eyes from all of your stingrays in the big tank. The hole looks big enough to put my fist through!
Employee: Oh, that's no their eye socket, it's their spiracle, its how they breathe.
Grandma: Oh, no. You don't understand, let me show you.
Employee: No, really, it's how they breathe. We didn't remove any of their eyes.
[Grandma proceeds to insist showing the employee, who then points out where the animals' eyes are.]

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

Woman looking at prawn (large shrimp): Can we touch the roaches?

inappropiateness.

Boisterous hispanic family comes into the stingray touching area.

Adult: Yo! Touch a stingray, yo!
12-year old: Nah, you touch it!
Adult: No, you do it! You scared!
12-year old: Man, you such a fag! You touch boners, but you won't touch a stingray!

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

From our corporate safety training video: If it's wet and it's not yours, don't touch it.

reading and listening.

Mom and three kids walk into Touch-A-Shark. I start talking, and the kids are listening.

Me: Hi, guys, you can touch any shark with-
Mom: Kids! Listen! Mr. Matt is going to tell you how to touch a shark.
Me: ..uh, with two fingers, and try not-
Mom: He's telling you how to touch. Are you listening?
Me: ...um, try not to touch fins or tails...

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

Two grandparents approach the touch area with a little girl. She tries to come in the exit.

Grandma: No no no, look, see? It says "exit." What's that sign say?
Girl: "Enter Here?"
Grandpa: Right!

They come in, I explain that all the animals are touchable and totally safe to touch. They approach the Touch-A-Jelly exhibit, which is clearly labeled.

Grandma: We can't touch jellies, can we?
Grandpa: Can we touch the jellies?
Me: That's what it says!

...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.