I spent this past Wednesday hanging out with my son and Jesus, studying life and nature with a backdrop of melodies from a wild bird sanctuary.

Sound peaceful?  Serene?  Let me fill in a few more details.  The soundtrack was just a smidge too loud and the life we were studying had already been snuffed, but expertly skinned and glued to form by a highly skilled taxidermist.  My son was severely disappointed that the dinosaur heart fossil we spent half an hour searching for looked remarkably like a rock – any old rock; and Jesus was hyper from the school provided PB&J sack lunch, running wild and pretending not to understand English when I called out, “Jesus, no jumping on the escalator!”  and “Jesus, quit banging on the rattle snake tank.”  or my favorite, “Jesus, get your hand out of the deer’s butt.” 

I don’t even want to know why the taxidermist gave Bambie an anus, let alone such a large one.

Next time I chaperone a field trip, I’m trading Jesus for Gracie.