Kids Say the Darndest Things

Last Friday I took off work to go to the San Diego Wild Animal Park with my Aunt C. who is in town. She was visiting with a friend, who has a 6-year-old daughter named M. I got to camp with them overnight at the Wild Animal Park through the Roar and Snore® program.

C and I arrived in time to see the lorikeets and a few other exhibits before meeting up at the Roar and Snore tents to unpack and get dinner.

On the bus for the Journey to Africa.

In the tent next door to us was a man probably in his late 20's and his son V, who was M's age. M and V instantly bonded and became best friends for the weekend - it's amazing how kids can do that! V's dad was pretty interesting too; he's a mechanical engineer turned marketing consultant from Germany who is working for a biotech start-up in San Diego. As a budding mechanical engineer myself, we had a lot to talk about.

Me and my new friends.

As part of the program, we got 2 guided tours and 3 presentations where care-takers brought out some of the animals not on exhibit, so it was definitely a more educational experience than your average zoo visit. (Plus, the tour guides were cute, and I got to chat with some of them for a while.)

I liked the Wild Animal Park better than the San Diego Zoo, because the enclosures were so vast, and the backdrop is pure California mountains. It felt more natural than any zoo I've ever been in, and was even drop dead gorgeous on occasion.

On Saturday, V was worn out and he and his dad left, so M grabbed my hand and gave me a whirlwind tour of the park, which she had seen with her mom yesterday. (They had arrived early on Friday.) "Quick!" she said, tugging me towards the next exhibit. "And don't step on any cracks, they're electric!" After "electrifying" myself a few times, she changed the rules so stepping on sidewalk cracks would "release monsters" - presumably a much greater deterrent. (And here I thought stepping on a crack just broke your mother's back!)

One of the coolest exhibits was Dino Mountain, a trail lined with animatronic dinosaurs! M eagerly showed me each one. "Here, this one spits water!" she warned me as we approached a dilophosaurus. Not wanting to get wet, I stood off to the side. The dinosaur turned it's head and sprayed me with water anyway. "You are right, M, it does!" I said cheerily as I tried to clean my glasses.


M really made an ordinary zoo trip vastly more entertaining. Kids say the funniest things! The most potent were two question asked right after the other:

"Will, do you have any kids?"
"Why, no M! I'm too young for that."
"Do you have a life?"

The bluntness of the question startled me for a second.

"Why, yes. Yes, M. I do. I go to college. And I have a job."

I thought deeply about those two questions, and the subtle implication of their quick succession. I hear the phrase "Get a life!" thrown around a lot at college, usually as a cheap insult, sometimes as self-deprecating humor. I think M is right though - if you don't have kids you should make your life extraordinary. My Aunt C. never married, but she has traveled all over the world (including Antarctica) and runs marathons; she plans to run a marathon in every continent before she dies. Once you have a kid, your life becomes centered around your child; you don't have as much time for a life of your own. It is almost as if you must choose between "having a life" and having kids. Frankly though, I'd choose kids any day if they a're as funny and sweet as M.