As most of our weekends start out, Saturday morning of March 7th began with "Well, have we decided what are we doing today?" For some reason, my thoughts turned towards taking Benjamin to the circus as I recalled from being subject to highway advertising on my commute to work on RT78 with colorful billboards screaming "Zing, Zang, Zoom" promoting the 'new' theme of Ringling Bros. I went online and within 10 minutes purchased three $27 seats (the ones for $40 and $75 were also available, but no takers here, thankfully.) As an added twist, the event was at 'the Rock', new home to the NJ Devils in resplendent downtown Newark. We had heard good things about the arena and were looking forward to checking it out as well.
In what turned out to be a beautiful day with temps in the low 70s, we easily parked at a lot adjacent to the sparkling new arena ($20 bucks cash and I didn't even tailgate one beer) and trekked in past the one block radius of police issued barricades and SWAT vans. No kidding. After all, we were in New Jersey's largest city at 11am on a Saturday!
Benjamin seemed excited as we entered and made our way around what is a beautiful facility surrounded by hockey jerseys from local high schools and vending as far as the eye can see. Now in our seats on about the '40 yard line and 20 rows up on the aisle' we were locked in and all ready for what Zing, Zang, Zoom had to offer. It began as one would have hoped with a dozen or so large elephants making their way out from the curtain and zebras and horses running in circles all to the music and lights ol' Barnum could plug in. From there, it went steadily downhill with increasing speed.
What followed the animal 'act' was roughly 50 minutes of Mexican trapeze artists (announcer thanked the flying Lopez family when they were done), Chinese gymnasts, and Russian acrobats during assortment of tumbling and unicycle riding that left our 2 year old yearning for the exits and me wondering about outsourcing. To placate him during this hour long 'extravaganza', we walked him up to the top of the stairs, played extensively in our seats and waited for the real circus to begin. Ben pushed aside the apple juice (relatively unheard of) but was receptive to a Banana nut muffin I picked up earlier that morning waiting for Jenn to get ready (no comment). Ben was seemingly transfixed eating the muffin and watching the goings on when suddenly let out a choking sound, audibly coughing a few times and just in time for his Mommy's hand to get in front of his face, vomited the contents of one very chewed and somewhat digested muffin. His jacket was covered in it, his monkey pack (adorably pictured below) was puked on, shoes were coated in it, and our splattered seats never to be returned to again! As I ran him up to the men's room (which when the arena closes black felt during show time is as hard to find as getting the fat Lopez brother through as a flaming hoop!), all I could say to myself was Zing, Zang, Puke! (expletive deleted).
After Jenn, Ben and I effectively removed all traces of upchucked nuts and muffin and settled down to laugh about it, we can up with our best idea of the day. Get Ben a present and get the hell out of Newark. Animal-lover that he is, Ben selected a toy elephant with logo included ($15 cash) and made the best-sounding elephant trumpet noise I have ever heard. We then hit the exit with a whole new perspective on Zing Zang Zoom.
1 comment:
Good thing we didn't go this week. Not sure how easily the puke would have come out of my splint.
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