A True Story

Working with Girl Scout leaders, I get to hear a lot of stories about mischievous kids. The one I heard tonight though takes the cake. I was at a leaders' meeting and after it was done, the person in charge said "you are all free to leave, but if you stick around five minutes, I have a hilarious story." I was game, so I stayed.

Her seven year old son had gone along with a five year old friend and the friend's parents to the National Aquarium in Baltimore. About forty-five minutes into the visit, the five year old disappeared. The parents are looking around frantically, thinking he has to be somewhere nearby. They can't find him and finally alert someone at the aquarium. The aquarium people can't find him either and finally call the police. They're working on locking down the aquarium when they see the kid wandering down the hallway. His coat is a little wet, but otherwise he seems fine. The mom of course freaks out and is asking the kid "where the hell were you?" (and this wasn't in the story, but I also imagine her saying "you worried mommy. Don't you ever do that again). The kid never answered where he was, and the whole ride home his friend was trying to talk to him in the backseat, but he remained quiet. When they got home, the mom yelled at him some more and sent him straight to his room. A half hour later, the mom decided she better go up and give him the "do you know what you did?" speech. She opens the door and finds her son on his bed playing with his new baby penguin!

Who do you call when your son steals a penguin? She called the number for the aquarium, but of course it gives her some random Ticketmaster number. After explaining the ridiculous penguin story to several befuddled people on the phone, she finally got a manager that could figure out what to do. The person gave her instructions on how to care for the penguin (unfortunately, there were no details on exactly what those were) and said they would send someone to pick up the penguin in the morning. I would think that they would want to rush out for the penguin right then, but I guess not.

The aquarium seems to be taking a "you don't give us any crap about how your 5 year old got into our penguin enclosure, we won't give you any crap for stealing a penguin."