Zoo

When I was in high school, it seemed like my peers all had more disposable income than I had. Come to think of it, they still seem to, twenty years later.



But anyway, when I was a junior in high school, I got my Dad's hand-me-down '74 Impala to drive. It had been my Grandma's car, and when she died, my Mom's car. When she bought a new car somewhere in my junior high years, my Dad bought it off her (they were divorced by this point). Then, when my Dad bought a different jalopy, I got the Impala.



And I got $20 a week from my Mom for gas money. Unlike today, when that would barely fund a trip to the gas station and back, this was actually a pretty liberal gas allowance. At 79¢ a gallon, with me living, technically, in walking distance from school and work, even an old V8 got me way more places than I really needed to go. In fact, I'm pretty sure I eeked some smokes, sodas, movie tickets and cheeseburgers out of this stipend.



And I had a part time job teaching guitar lessons at a music store that paid me $24 an hour. I didn't have a lot of students, but that was insanely better money than the usual sort of high school job pays. Some of that went into savings for college, but really I probably had more money to just blow in on stuff when I was seventeen than I do now. Not to mention more free time, since I earned in one or two short afternoons what some of my friends worked practically full time at Godfather's and Taco Hell to make.



I know, youth is wasted on the young. I'm glad I got my share of it at least.

But I had friends who, when they were going out, could simply hit the cookie jar and grab a ten-spot or even a twenty, no questions asked. I'm certain there were limits placed on the cookie jar, but they were invisible to me since I wasn't there when the limits had been set. It just looked like they had unlimited resources.



Other friends couldn't leave the house without being offered money by their parents. 'I'm going out, Mom,' triggered, 'Do you need any money?' Again, I'm sure there were limits, but at the time, it didn't appear so.



Anyway, the only reason I bring this up, one time I was talking to my Mom, back in these halcyon high school days, and I made a comment that she never just gave me money to spend without any accounting for how it was spent.



'Oh, that hurts,' she said. I was seventeen, which is to say pathologically narcissistic, and really couldn't see how she could be hurt by the fact that I didn't even register the $80 a month I got like clockwork, no questions asked, even though I had an income and could legitimately have been expected to fund the car I didn't technically need out of my own cash flow. A car she paid the insurance premiums on. And the car tags.



Why do I bring up this moment of incomprehensible adolescent ingratitude on the eve of Mother's Day? With Zoo pictures, no less?

Because last night over dinner, Em told me I don't take her anywhere.



I didn't even bring up the recent vacation, the Cosmosphere, the Salt Mine Museum, the Garden of Eden, Grass Roots Folk Art Center, World's Biggest Ball of Twine, because I couldn't get past my shock that all the places I've taken her to on weekend outings could just evaporate from her conscious mind like that.



The Nelson? Kemper Museum? Moon Marble, the Plaza, Santa-Cali-Gon, Johnson County Fair, Maple Leaf Festival, Roots Festival, Kansas Speedway, Liberty Memorial, Kaleidoscope, Wonderscope, Union Station, HMS Beagle, KATY trail, B-Bop, Shawnee Mission Park (for trails, tower-climbing, rocket launches and kite flying), the Zoo...?



I mean, seriously, I have my flaws on the Daddy front. Big ones, some of them, but not taking my kids anywhere isn't one of them.

When the divorce first got underway, I'd become a distant father who honestly didn't know what to do with his kids on a weekend. Days alone with my kids terrified me. If not terrifying to them, they certainly viewed them with a healthy suspicion.



But the worst thing I could do was just sit at home and let the stress mount up. So we went out. Sometimes just mall walking. I started scoping out the free things, like the Nelson and Moon Marble. Then the cheap things. Occasionally, the not so cheap things like the Zoo.



And I found myself having fun, too. To the point where I take my kids to do things not just because it looks fun for them, but because it looks fun for me, too.



But Em, particularly, has gotten to where she likes to resist the efforts. She asks if she can stay home, she attempts a refusal to go in to a place, she gets bitchy and tries to make everyone miserable. And she gets busted for these things. She doesn't have a license to be a brooding teenager yet.



So after a comment like that, that I don't take her anywhere, the chances she's going to succeed in begging off a Zoo excursion are right up there with the chance of Bigfoot and Jimmy Hoffa coming to my house for breakfast.

Both girls pretended not to want to do the Zoo. Last time we'd been was a little over a year ago. Mo had a seizure practically upon entry, so that visit doesn't really count.

But I'd been thinking about the Zoo for weeks. Offered it a couple of times, and met refusal and resistance. I finally decided that, damnit, we're going. The cool weather, I knew from experience, would mean the animals would do more than lay there and silently complain about the heat.

Warthogs walking around instead of laying in the mud. Hippos walking on land instead of hiding in the water. Big cats laying around because they don't need to impress you no matter how nice the weather is.



I've been nursing some plantar fasciitis in my left foot for a few weeks, and the rest, ice, and an expensive pair of running shoes had seemed to get the issue under control. Still a pang here and there, but for the most part, what had been a crippling pain had receded. Instead of it hurting just to sit with the weight of my leg in the shoe, I could walk without discomfort.

But by the time we had finished Africa and were waiting for the tram to take us up the hill, I was feeling it. My foot throbbed, in fact.



Maybe if I can get it healed up for real, the shoes will do their job. If not, I guess I'm in for the custom orthotics. My parents both needed them by the time they were my age, so I guess if it comes to that, I come by it honestly.

Em's initial resistance melted away after just a couple of animals. Before I knew it, she was leading the way, jumping around and imitating animals we'd seen.



I debated at the gate about buying a membership. I can take the girls three times for about the price of the membership. The question was whether we'd really go four or five times. Without the membership to make us go, definitely not. Maybe having the membership to push me into taking them there would be a good idea, but I opted for the single admission.



Another thing: I guess I'd file this as 'close enough for government work.' But check out the sign explaining the cash-only register at the concession stand we ate lunch at. Personally, I'm not certain how anyone could except a credit card if they wanted to...



But next time Em tells me I don't take her anywhere, I'm going to have to tell her that's a big pile of stinking elephant shit.