I know, I know, parking problems happen, right? These are the kind of things that you just need to expect from a big city on occasion. The number of vehicles in San Francisco exceeds the available parking to the degree that 1/3rd of all cars in the city cannot be parked. Some days you are going to find yourself on the ugly side of that statistic, it is an inevitable roll of the dice if you shoot crap often enough. Knowing this, I took my pregnant self, two kids and exceptionally full bladder and began the mile walk from our car to the Academy of Sciences.

I was cranky and uptight after the long search. I had waited in a traffic jam directly caused by the Golden Gate Parking Garage’s neglecting to switch the sign that read “parking available” to “no parking whatsoever, keep on moving, suckers!”. An entire lane had shut down around the park, and I had found myself so close to the entrance that I ended up stuck with no way out for over fifteen minutes. I used this time wisely and made three peanut butter sandwiches in my lap, even taking care to slice the bananas so they evenly covered my bread. Once we finally dislodged from the line of death, we had circled surrounding neighborhoods until I thought I’d cry, or at least pee my pants.

We walked briskly past a construction site with a port-a-potty, and I nearly asked the guys working there if I could use it. We arrived in the park, which was lovely and teeming with humanity. I don’t mean a few cute couples and darling children running about. I mean we were swept away into a throng of cranky parents, screaming children and scowling elderly people. It was crazy busy. I was glad I had purchased my tickets ahead of time online.

We pushed past the crowd and entered the museum, where I had expected to find an atmosphere of some order and educational inspiration. Instead, it was packed tighter than the mass of people on the outside. We found our family members and decided to push on toward some exhibits after locating a restroom. I was still flustered and stressed, and so I reminded myself that the only thing I could change was my attitude, and that parking had been rough, but that was over and we were here now, and it was time to enjoy life. I really did try to make the best of things.

We crammed into an elevator and went down to the aquarium, which will heretofore be referred to as the Fishy Mosh Pit. The FMP was ridiculously packed. We didn’t walk so much as we were pushed through the exhibits. I tried to situate the kids in a reasonable spot near the glass, but every time I moved and left six inches of space between me and another human being or wall, it was as if I had opened a freeway. People barged past, squeezed in, and invaded my personal space bubble to the point where I was smelling perfect stranger’s breath and I think I got felt up once or twice. At one point a sweet, delicate, petite Asian lady shoved me aside, nearly knocking me off balance so she could cram her children into the two inches between me and the glass. She gave me a dirty look when I nearly fell over onto her son, and then seemed to realize that she had just rammed into a pregnant woman, as she mumbled an apology before she proceeded to do it again. I considered myself warned.

The heat was quickly building in the Fishy Mosh Pit and I was becoming a little lightheaded so I pressed myself against the farthest back wall where I could feel a slight air current from the open door. Thankfully, my children felt no need to move while I took this breather, and even more thankfully, I had two other adults there with me. With the horde of people, it was a kidnappers banquet, as the only way to keep track of your child was to jerk them around by the hand (so fun! so educational!) or to put them on a leash. We tried to talk about the fish and use the identification cards, but using them would have involved my children being able to hear my voice. It was so loud that even shouting couldn’t get a point across. Jonas tried repeatedly to listen to the information buttons describing what we were looking at, but we couldn’t hear those either. After seeing about half of the aquarium, we decided that it would be best to come up for some air so we went upstairs.

Upstairs had so much to offer! You could see a Planetarium show (but they were all sold out an hour after opening, and we’d still been parking at that time), and we could visit the amazing four story Amazon rain forest (after you stood in line like cattle for two hours). You even had your choice of two places to eat (both involving lines that wrapped around most of the main hall). There was a great ecology exhibit and we tried to see it, but between people shoving you out of the way and the constant dull roar from the thousands of people in line, it wasn’t any fun at all.

I wanted to see the Academy of Sciences in all the glory that I’d seen on the website and on television, but all I saw was humanity, crammed inside like so many dollar signs. I had thought that the point of purchasing tickets in advance was so that we could come to a place where learning and enjoyment was possible, but instead, the building was filled to crushing capacity. I had assumed that they had a cap on how many people they could let in at one time, but it was obviously constructed around a bottom line, and not ensuring that patrons actually got to experience and enjoy the place they had chosen to spend their day. I expected a crowd, but this made Disneyland seem tame. I paid $24 for my ticket alone, and I saw almost nothing. My children left cranky, hungry and extremely disappointed that they had seen so little.

We ended up leaving about three hours after we had arrived, having done almost nothing. Depressing.

At this point, I started driving to a restaurant and accidentally made one wrong turn. San Francisco being the Land of No Left Turns, a wrong turn can be problematic. I do know the city fairly well (or at least I used to), so I headed for a different way home that I knew would be a reasonable journey. Unfortunately, that road was closed. I ended up driving through the city for an hour before getting to San Bruno where I finally got some food. After the food, I ran to work to do a Quickutz demo, which was fun, but man, was I pooped!

I picked up my kids and waited until I knew evening traffic was clear before driving the hour home.

And that, my friends, is the story of why yesterday blew.

P.S. I will be writing the Academy of Sciences to let customer service know a few things they could do better. I have heard that others have done this and been given free passes to use, but I’m not sure if I’m brave enough to try again.

P.P.S.- This post is pictureless because the only shots I could get were of totally blurred strangers and having my camera in my hands made me very nervous with the way people were pushing and shoving. Not to mention that keeping track of my kids while taking a picture of them was impossible.