Infamous

I have a lot of wonderful memories of Oz. Two of those memories are of my trips to Taronga Zoo. Talk about prime real estate! You know “the” view of Sydney ~ the one where the Opera House is on the left, the bridge is to the right? Yeah, that’s the one…it’s the view from the zoo.

It’s where I was up close & personal with my first koala (THEY AREN’T BEARS!!). It was also where I became infamous.

My Aussie sister and I were being goofy (SO unlike us…). We decided that we needed to talk to the seals and try to get them to do tricks. It’s not that unrealistic, is it?! I mean, they have seal shows, right?

It is important to mention that I wear glasses. I also wear prescription sunglasses. On this particular day, I had my regular glasses hanging on my collar of my t-shirt. As I was “talking to the animals” I leaned a little too far forward and PLOP! There go my glasses! I think it’s also important to mention that I tend to be a bit dramatic. We again tried to get the seals to bring my glasses up to me balanced on their nose, but they weren’t cooperating. We needed a zookeeper. I tried to convince the Keeper to get the seals to bring it up. He just rolled his eyes at me and proceeded to drag my glasses up the side of the tank with the pool skimmer. Killjoy.

The story doesn’t end there! Oh no, the title of this blog is, after all, ‘infamous.’

When I went back to visit my family a couple years later, my sister & I decided to go back. We of course had to go visit the scene of the crime. There was a Keeper there at the tank talking to some other Americans. We overheard him saying “Yeah, a few years back, a Yank dropped her glass…” I screamed, shrieked, and screamed again “THAT WAS ME! THAT WAS ME!!”

I believe his response was a non-emphatic “Crikey, it was…” (and no, putz, it wasn’t Steve Erwin).