Henry's Zoo Trip: Cage the Children or the Animals?

Last week, I had the privilege of helping Henry's class during their Zoo Field Trip to the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo.

Below is a group shot after we made our way into the joint.  (Henry is the red hat in the back row)

It took Henry's school a little while to show up.  For awhile, I thought I was going to be hanging out at the Zoo by myself.  Within minutes of thinking this, yellow school buses starting pulling into the Zoo like it was a red carpet gala.  I was soon surrounded by 500 kindergarteners.

Apparently, it was a field trip day for a dozen or so schools around NE Ohio. 

Gulp.

Here's my actual text to Erica at 10:06am as the buses started rolling in:

ROB's PHONE to ERICA: "Holy @#$!"

That was the last contact from me for the rest of the day.

All in all, though, it was a fun day and no one was fed to the lions.  That's how we measure success at the Zoo.

Henry's teacher did a fantastic job of keeping the kids in small groups, with nametags, bracelets and global positioning sensors to track their movements.  

I thought the ankle monitors were a little much, but the kids didn't seem to mind dragging one foot behind the other.  Times have changed since I last went on a class field trip.  In my day, you took your life into your own hands as part of your survival training.  These days, they put the kids into an antiseptic bubble and roll them from exhibit to exhibit.

Part of the allure of a Zoo is to see the strange people outside the cage, as much as the animals inside it.  These days, however, there were no chances taken.

There were warnings sent home telling us not to bring money, not to buy the kids any snacks or trinkets, and not to make eye contact with the Principal.  (She totally looks like Joan Cusack from the movie "School of Rock," by the way). 

Okay, the eye thing isn't true, but the rest is.  I guess in retrospect it makes sense, but it makes me sad that they actually have to tell parents to have common sense.  Parents are kind of stupid, though.  No, parents are all the way stupid.  I take back what I said.

My favorite part of the day, besides observing my son interacting with his classmates and seeing his kindergarten crush come running up to him at the end of the day to tell him about the Zoo, was watching a 6 year old in Henry's class actually eat more than I ate at lunch.  

The tall kid in the picture above was in our group.

Apparently, the reason he is tall is that he eats TWO whole sandwiches for lunch.  Dude out-ate me.  I was flabbergasted.

On second thought, judging on his height and his Joey Chestnut-like ability to pile turkey sandwiches away, he's probably 16 years old and a ten year flunkie.

I didn't ask him, but I probably should have.  I could have swore I saw him driving a Ford Focus out of the parking lot at the end of the day.

Bullocks.