Free Willy...Willy? WILLY!!!
My brother and I had a lovely time hanging out this weekend. I took the day off work Friday so we could head down into Washington, DC, to see the WWII Memorial and some other stuff.
What this post is about, though, is the National Aquarium in DC. We hadn't planned on going there, but as we were walking past the U.S. Department of Commerce, I saw a sign and yelled and pointed.
"2pm - Shark Feeding!!!!"
My brother was just as interested as we stopped to read the sign. As it turned out, the National Aquarium fed the sharks at 2pm (with bonus lecture!) on Mondays and Wednesdays. They fed the piranhas at 2pm (with bonus lecture!) on Tuesdays and Thursdays. And then Fridays at 2pm was the alligator feeding (with bonus lecture!). One look at the watch showed us it was 1:45pm.
Eric looked at me. "How 'bout it? Sounds cool to me."
I nodded excitedly and we kept walking toward what we thought would be the door. As it turned out, we had already passed the door. The reason it was hard to find is because the National Aquarium in DC is located in the basement of the U.S. Dept. of Commerce. And it's accessible via one door in one particular corner of the building. We should have taken that as a clue, but the lure of seeing giant alligators rip their lunch apart in front of us was too good to pass up.
We walked through the elusive door and then went through the security process of the metal detector and X-ray machine. Then we walked downstairs through a hallway that looked like someone had painted in the style of a 1970s children's bedroom for a kid who loved fish.
Once into the aquarium ($4 each with a military discount, thanks to Eric and America!), we saw just what we were dealing with.
This aquarium was really run-down. It appeared that they had already invested the $75 grant they received back in 1978 and were long overdue for another $25 to finish off a few of the tanks.
They did have some cool creatures here and there (like the piranha tank), but most of it was in a tank-wall set-up that looked like a glorified mom 'n' pop pet shop. I expected to stumble upon a goldfish tank with a "$.25 each!" sign on it.
Half the tanks were empty and had some sign like "Specimen temporarily removed" on them. The rest of the first were just stuffed into small tanks. The alligators had some space, but they were little guys. No giant alligators here, these were Junior Alligators. That's okay, though, you could still get really close to them. More on that later.
Because we had some time to kill before the alligator buffet began, we wandered the aquarium a little more. One cool critter I got to see close-up was the Spiny Lobster. What a cool, creepy-looking bastard. I watched it skitter around the tank for a while before it approached the glass. It waved its many legs and antennae at me, as if to say, "Please help get me out of this sub-par so-called 'scientific establishment'! I deserve more! The fish in the tank next to me are dead! I'll soon be next! No, please, don't walk away! I'm creepy-looking, but I'm a really nice guy!"
That brings me to the best part (if it can get any better than pretending a Spiny Lobster can talk to you, that is). While the fish in the tank right next to Mr. Rescue Me Lobster weren't dead....it didn't look so good a few tanks down.
The shark tank was decent sized and had a couple Leopard Sharks swimming around. Eric and I watched them for a while, and then I moved down to one end of the tank. Stuck down in the corner -- right up on the glass -- was a shark that looked like it was sleeping. It was smaller than the others, but it was still a leopard shark. The shark's eyes were shut and it was not moving.
I called to Eric. "Hey - this shark is sleeping. I think."
We looked more closely, pressing our faces up against the glass. Eric was not convinced. "Um, its gills aren't moving. I think it's dead."
We watched it for a little while longer, and there was no movement whatsoever. No gill movement, no eye movement, nothing. It was just lodged down in the corner of the tank. We looked at each other. Eric then moved on, but I stayed by the dead shark a little longer. I thought about going for an aquarium worker to see if that thing really was dead, but then it was alligator feeding time. I made my way back toward the alligator pen.
Like my cat, alligators in captivity know when it's time to eat. As soon as the aquarium worker appeared next to the glass to start her talk, the two little juniors actually moved. They had been laying around the tank like dead alligators previously. Anyway, she shows up and they start running and swimming around frantically. When the National Aquarium uses the word "lecture" for its advertising, it uses it loosely. The aquarium worker who gave the talk on Friday started off by asking the many families in attendance what the most dangerous part of an alligator is.
Most everyone yelled out "the tail!"
Are you kidding me? I understand if kids answer that way, they're kids. That's their excuse. Nope, this was adults, too. I don't know if they were trying to wow the speaker with their attempt at a 'cleverly intelligent' answer, but they were way off. Eric and I just stared at each other.
Seriously, if an alligator is coming after you - are you really worried about its tail? I wouldn't be, and that's because I'd be staring at ITS GIANT MOUTH FULL OF GIANT SHARP TEETH.
To her credit, the worker handled the crowd well. Whilst I may have yelled, "You are all morons!", she instead answered that it was the animal's jaws that were the most potent part. She added that in all her years of working with gators, none had ever run at her whipping their tails. I had hoped she would have then quickly pushed some of the idiots into the alligator tank, but she didn't. I'll be she's wanted to do that at some point in her career, though.
Anyway, she continued on with some more information. I had thought we'd be learning some awesome things about alligators, but none of it was really spectacular. She asked the crowd what one should do if they come across an alligator in the wild. I refrained from yelling out, "TAKE CONTROL OF ITS EVIL DANGEROUS DEATH TAIL!!! AAAHHH!!"
The folks had a range of answers, from climbing a tree to grabbing for its jaws (again, if facing an alligator in a wild, do you really want to reach toward its giant mouth full of giant sharp teeth?). Not too many answered with my choice, which is "RUN THE F*CK AWAY!!" I was hoping the speaker had some awesome, little-known way of evading a gator. Instead, she listened to me. She said the best way to deal with an alligator in the wild is to turn around and run away very quickly. Yes, very quickly. Not a slow jog that one might take in the morning, but rather very quickly, like you're being chased by a big fat alligator who will eat you faster than Oprah can clean out a Krispy Kreme store.
She then produced the very old joke of, "And make sure you're at least running faster than the slowest person in your group! Haha!" That's right, kids, make sure you're faster than your friends if you don't want to be gator food.
Thankfully, the alligator 'lecture' quickly ended and we got to move on to the buffet. The speaker entered the gator pen with a buddy, and they stood in the doorway feeding the gators dead things while also fighting them off with sticks and a five-gallon bucket. That part was cool, the gators rushed the door and almost took the bucket off the woman at one point.
Our aquarium trip now complete, Eric and I bid it farewell. Total, we spent about 1/2-hour in the place.
Sorry if I sound so bitter about it. I'm used to the National Aquarium in Baltimore, which costs $20 to get in and is worth every penny. It's huge and amazing, everyone should visit it at some point. So I felt bad that visitors were getting that view of our "national aquarium," some run-down shabby place with dead sharks floating around in it.
In conclusion, yes officers, I've always had that Spiny Lobster as a pet. It's a mere coincidence that the DC aquarium one went missing this weekend.
My brother and I had a lovely time hanging out this weekend. I took the day off work Friday so we could head down into Washington, DC, to see the WWII Memorial and some other stuff.
What this post is about, though, is the National Aquarium in DC. We hadn't planned on going there, but as we were walking past the U.S. Department of Commerce, I saw a sign and yelled and pointed.
"2pm - Shark Feeding!!!!"
My brother was just as interested as we stopped to read the sign. As it turned out, the National Aquarium fed the sharks at 2pm (with bonus lecture!) on Mondays and Wednesdays. They fed the piranhas at 2pm (with bonus lecture!) on Tuesdays and Thursdays. And then Fridays at 2pm was the alligator feeding (with bonus lecture!). One look at the watch showed us it was 1:45pm.
Eric looked at me. "How 'bout it? Sounds cool to me."
I nodded excitedly and we kept walking toward what we thought would be the door. As it turned out, we had already passed the door. The reason it was hard to find is because the National Aquarium in DC is located in the basement of the U.S. Dept. of Commerce. And it's accessible via one door in one particular corner of the building. We should have taken that as a clue, but the lure of seeing giant alligators rip their lunch apart in front of us was too good to pass up.
We walked through the elusive door and then went through the security process of the metal detector and X-ray machine. Then we walked downstairs through a hallway that looked like someone had painted in the style of a 1970s children's bedroom for a kid who loved fish.
Once into the aquarium ($4 each with a military discount, thanks to Eric and America!), we saw just what we were dealing with.
This aquarium was really run-down. It appeared that they had already invested the $75 grant they received back in 1978 and were long overdue for another $25 to finish off a few of the tanks.
They did have some cool creatures here and there (like the piranha tank), but most of it was in a tank-wall set-up that looked like a glorified mom 'n' pop pet shop. I expected to stumble upon a goldfish tank with a "$.25 each!" sign on it.
Half the tanks were empty and had some sign like "Specimen temporarily removed" on them. The rest of the first were just stuffed into small tanks. The alligators had some space, but they were little guys. No giant alligators here, these were Junior Alligators. That's okay, though, you could still get really close to them. More on that later.
Because we had some time to kill before the alligator buffet began, we wandered the aquarium a little more. One cool critter I got to see close-up was the Spiny Lobster. What a cool, creepy-looking bastard. I watched it skitter around the tank for a while before it approached the glass. It waved its many legs and antennae at me, as if to say, "Please help get me out of this sub-par so-called 'scientific establishment'! I deserve more! The fish in the tank next to me are dead! I'll soon be next! No, please, don't walk away! I'm creepy-looking, but I'm a really nice guy!"
That brings me to the best part (if it can get any better than pretending a Spiny Lobster can talk to you, that is). While the fish in the tank right next to Mr. Rescue Me Lobster weren't dead....it didn't look so good a few tanks down.
The shark tank was decent sized and had a couple Leopard Sharks swimming around. Eric and I watched them for a while, and then I moved down to one end of the tank. Stuck down in the corner -- right up on the glass -- was a shark that looked like it was sleeping. It was smaller than the others, but it was still a leopard shark. The shark's eyes were shut and it was not moving.
I called to Eric. "Hey - this shark is sleeping. I think."
We looked more closely, pressing our faces up against the glass. Eric was not convinced. "Um, its gills aren't moving. I think it's dead."
We watched it for a little while longer, and there was no movement whatsoever. No gill movement, no eye movement, nothing. It was just lodged down in the corner of the tank. We looked at each other. Eric then moved on, but I stayed by the dead shark a little longer. I thought about going for an aquarium worker to see if that thing really was dead, but then it was alligator feeding time. I made my way back toward the alligator pen.
Like my cat, alligators in captivity know when it's time to eat. As soon as the aquarium worker appeared next to the glass to start her talk, the two little juniors actually moved. They had been laying around the tank like dead alligators previously. Anyway, she shows up and they start running and swimming around frantically. When the National Aquarium uses the word "lecture" for its advertising, it uses it loosely. The aquarium worker who gave the talk on Friday started off by asking the many families in attendance what the most dangerous part of an alligator is.
Most everyone yelled out "the tail!"
Are you kidding me? I understand if kids answer that way, they're kids. That's their excuse. Nope, this was adults, too. I don't know if they were trying to wow the speaker with their attempt at a 'cleverly intelligent' answer, but they were way off. Eric and I just stared at each other.
Seriously, if an alligator is coming after you - are you really worried about its tail? I wouldn't be, and that's because I'd be staring at ITS GIANT MOUTH FULL OF GIANT SHARP TEETH.
To her credit, the worker handled the crowd well. Whilst I may have yelled, "You are all morons!", she instead answered that it was the animal's jaws that were the most potent part. She added that in all her years of working with gators, none had ever run at her whipping their tails. I had hoped she would have then quickly pushed some of the idiots into the alligator tank, but she didn't. I'll be she's wanted to do that at some point in her career, though.
Anyway, she continued on with some more information. I had thought we'd be learning some awesome things about alligators, but none of it was really spectacular. She asked the crowd what one should do if they come across an alligator in the wild. I refrained from yelling out, "TAKE CONTROL OF ITS EVIL DANGEROUS DEATH TAIL!!! AAAHHH!!"
The folks had a range of answers, from climbing a tree to grabbing for its jaws (again, if facing an alligator in a wild, do you really want to reach toward its giant mouth full of giant sharp teeth?). Not too many answered with my choice, which is "RUN THE F*CK AWAY!!" I was hoping the speaker had some awesome, little-known way of evading a gator. Instead, she listened to me. She said the best way to deal with an alligator in the wild is to turn around and run away very quickly. Yes, very quickly. Not a slow jog that one might take in the morning, but rather very quickly, like you're being chased by a big fat alligator who will eat you faster than Oprah can clean out a Krispy Kreme store.
She then produced the very old joke of, "And make sure you're at least running faster than the slowest person in your group! Haha!" That's right, kids, make sure you're faster than your friends if you don't want to be gator food.
Thankfully, the alligator 'lecture' quickly ended and we got to move on to the buffet. The speaker entered the gator pen with a buddy, and they stood in the doorway feeding the gators dead things while also fighting them off with sticks and a five-gallon bucket. That part was cool, the gators rushed the door and almost took the bucket off the woman at one point.
Our aquarium trip now complete, Eric and I bid it farewell. Total, we spent about 1/2-hour in the place.
Sorry if I sound so bitter about it. I'm used to the National Aquarium in Baltimore, which costs $20 to get in and is worth every penny. It's huge and amazing, everyone should visit it at some point. So I felt bad that visitors were getting that view of our "national aquarium," some run-down shabby place with dead sharks floating around in it.
In conclusion, yes officers, I've always had that Spiny Lobster as a pet. It's a mere coincidence that the DC aquarium one went missing this weekend.
posted by H at
3:30 PM
3 Comments:
Great story. Guess this attraction was easy to miss, which is why I didn't see it when I was in DC.
"No, please, don't walk away! I'm creepy-looking, but I'm a really nice guy!" ---I've had guys say this to me in bars too...Maybe they borrowed the spiny lobster's pickup line.
That spiny lobster is terrifying-- but I can't figure out if it's more or less so than that dog-faced fish whose name I don't know. Sadly, appearances have a forceful affect on yours truly.
Damn, that lobster is using my best pick up line....
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