Bright light! Bright light!

On Mondays I volunteer at the Riverhead Foundation. I'll either help out in the office or at the resource center over in the aquarium. Today was resource center day and I usually have a great time. I get to hang with the animals and the kids are all so excited to see all the stuff. They're usually quite sweet and genuinely interested in the turtles and the seals.

Blizzard and Kyra show off for the kids in their tanks.  One little girl saw the turtle rescue picture collage and picked Blizzard's picture right out.  She was all of 6 and adopted him about a month ago.  Her mother said she'd memorized every pixel of his pictures.  She ran right over to his tank and spent about 10 minutes telling him every thought in her head.

The whole area is usually full of tiny child squeals and giggles.  The kids are cute and fluffy and you are so very happy to have their sweet faces around.

Sure, they're cute.  Of course you can keep them.  But heed these three warnings: Don't ever get them wet.  Keep them away from bright light.  And the most important thing, the one thing you must never forget: no matter how much they cry, no matter how much they beg . . . never, never feed them after midnight.

Bus after bus full of kids from camps showed up.  Evil, nasty, spawn of satan, Gremlin children.   They showed up 20 at a time, all in matching T-shirts of their camp.   I would say they were raised by wolves but wolf pups have better manners and are probably less destructive.  

First off none of them walked.  They ran everywhere and it didn't matter if you were in their path.  Then they touched everything.  Everything there is designed to be touched by the kids.  But the whale vertebrae wasn't designed to be picked up and dropped.  The Green Turtle shell wasn't designed to be worn by 10 year olds.  The fishing net wasn't meant to be tied around their heads (although this one would have solved many problems had I let them all choke each other).

They banged on the glass of the animal tanks.  Thankfully the tanks have really thick glass but I'm pretty sure neither turtle really appreciated all sudden movements.   I had to clean the glass every half hour because you couldn't see Amelia the seal in the big tank.  One of the little angels jammed up the kiosk.   I was constantly picking up the fact sheets and cards.  All the adoption forms were taken and most of the pens.  I had to call maintenance about 6 times to replace and fix things and I was only there 4 hours.

There are a few different coin donation drops.  They are these fun centrifugal force banks that take in a pretty decent amount of donations.  I caught John Dillinger with his arm in the hole trying to get at the change.  Really?  You're going to steal from sick animals in public?  I'm sure when he grows up he will be quite the upstanding citizen.

All through this I heard a little sound in the back of my head.  My mother's laughter.  So wrong, so very very wrong. 

Next Monday I'll be in the office.  I may hide there till summer is over and the Future Teenage Delinquents of New York are back in school.