Last month, my dreams came true when I got to spend time with penguins at the aquarium.
There’s a term in modern internet parlance for girls who had a horse obsession in childhood and the teen years. We call them horse girls. These girls had posters of thoroughbreds on their walls and exclusively read equine-centric novels and horses were just kind of their whole deal.
I was not a horse girl. But I was a penguin girl. I would tell anyone with ears that penguins were my favorite animal and I always had penguin facts at the ready. I was so enthusiastic about the creatures that I signed up to do an optional research project through a program my elementary school called Curious Cub, wherein kids who completed a project and presented to their class got to go on a special field trip during school hours. What I had in enthusiasm for penguins, though, I lacked in time management, and I missed the deadline to complete my penguin research and papier-maché props in time for the field trip. And that was the first of many hard lessons I had to learn about deadlines.
Missing that field trip has always haunted me. Though I’m sure the field trip itself was nothing more spectacular than a trip to the local paper mill, I still felt remorse that I let the penguins down by not sharing fun facts about them with my classmates. I felt like I owed them an apology. And like I may never get the chance.
Then, some 20 years later, I learned the Loveland Living Planet Aquarium in Draper offers an experience called a penguin encounter. But for no good reason at all, I never signed up because believed it would be prohibitively expensive.
Meeting actual penguins in real life, I thought, must have around the same price tag as taking a trip to space like Katy Perry or riding in a submersible to the bottom of the ocean (without exploding). An experience available only to billionaires with adventurous spirits. The people who will drive an Aston Martin to the aquarium, hand their furs to coat check, and remove their many diamond rings to store in the aquarium safe before walking into the penguin enclosure where they and the penguins share a tin of caviar.
So imagine my surprise when I learned that the cost to encounter penguins was between 50 and 70 dollars, and even less for Aquarium members. That’s not cheap, but it’s also not something only first-class-fliers can afford.
So I got an hourlong penguins encounter for Christmas from my husband.
It was supposed to be an experience I shared with my family, but something went awry in the booking process. When my husband, kids and I showed up at the front desk, we were informed only one spot had been reserved for the five of us. And since it was both my dream and my Christmas present, my husband and children insisted that I go without them, instead of rescheduling for months later.
Which I felt weird about!
But I would have felt weirder about having paid for a ticket that went unused.
So, feeling embarrassed and alone, I followed the aquarium employee and nine other penguin-encounterers — all of whom seem to have been able to book the encounter for multiple attendees without issue — to an auditorium where we were given a presentation.
The presenter gave us a few rules to be followed. We were to remain seated for the entirety of our time with the penguins so as not to freak them out by growing 2 feet taller when standing. We were told not to touch the penguins and also to get out of the way if it looked as though a penguin were about to poop. We were then handed boots and jackets to put on before heading into the freezing habitat.
And so, adorned in a giant coat and giant boots, I followed the instructor and the rest of the group into the room behind the penguin exhibit where another aquarium employee handed me a bowl full of fish.
Given all those rules and my aloneness and the smelliness of the dead fish, I was pretty confident I was about to feel awkward and disappointed. But then the employee opened the door connecting the room to the exhibit and a horde of gentoo penguins came waddling into the room.
You know who immediately makes others feel at ease? A gentoo penguin.
I was immediately swarmed by a group of hungry, tuxedoed birds who looked expectantly at the fish in my hands. Within seconds the fish were completely gobbled up, and I worried that the penguins would lose interest and walk away. But instead, the penguins seemed just as fascinated by us — me and a bunch of strangers — as we were by them.
And before I knew it, I forgot I was awkward and alone and I was engaged in full conversations with my new feathered friends, albeit one-sided. I told them how handsome they were (even the women, because anyone in a tux looks handsome), commented on how hungry they were, and asked if I could take their photo.
Technically I was talking to myself, and the other people in the room may have noticed, but I don’t care. These penguins were my new best friends. And we spent a wonderful 15 minutes together while they walked around, inspecting each of us, inspecting our shoes, inspecting the room — one of them was especially interested in the hose hanging from the wall and another was fascinated with one of the other attendee’s legs — and making random honks.
In the pre-encounter presentation we were warned about one of the adolescent penguins who was going through penguin puberty and was a bit of a problem. And indeed, he stood in the middle of the cold room and squawked incessantly. I loved him.
I loved all of them. Those 15 minutes were some of the happiest moments of my life. And while I had intended to offer a heartfelt apology for missing the curious cub deadline, in the end no apology was necessary. Because the penguins never needed me to spread the good word about them to my third grade peers. They have fans everywhere they go, or rather, anywhere the fans go to see them.
I left the encounter healed and happy. And resolved to bring my family next time. We’ll just need to triple-check the booking.