The Shedd Aquarium is the Greatest Thing Ever

First draft of a piece written for my creative nonfiction class:

For me, the Shedd aquarium has a theme song: “Age of Aquarius” from “Hair,” but the word “Aquarius” is replaced with “Aquarium.” I go bounding up the stairs to the Shedd, singing to my self (and anyone I’ve dragged with me) “This is the dawning of the age of aquarium, age of aquarium, aquariuuuuuum!”

When I moved back to Chicago after an unfortunate five year stint in Ohio, I refused to pay for cable or a land-line phone, but quickly shelled out the $70 aquarium individual member fee. I like going when there is a line to get in. My membership card allows me to march past the stressed-out tourists with my smug sense of ownership and native superiority. I show my card at the desk and they hand me my round blue sticker with that all-important word: “Member.” When people point it out later that night I laugh with mock embarrassment, pretending that I just forgot to take it off. But really, I’m wearing it as a badge of honor.

The main hall of the Shedd is shaped like an octopus with the Caribbean reef is at its center. I like to find Nickel, the resident sea turtle with buoyancy problems. She was rescued with a nickel in her stomach after being mauled by a powerboat and now hangs out under the fake coral to avoid floating upward, tail first, at random intervals.

When I was little, the side halls had giant sea creatures hanging from the ceiling. I realize now that they were fake, but a mean-looking squid and a huge, angry red octopus with suction-cup arms probably started my fear of evil tentacled sea-things. Anemones don’t have mouths but can eat fish, so those freak me out, too. As do the eels, though the huge one in the Caribbean reef tank is pretty cool. The only reason it looks green is that it’s covered in yellow mucus and viewed through blue water.
Nothing covered in boogers can be that scary.

When I moved back to Chicago, the aquarium had an extra floor called the Wild Reef. Some people make the mistake of hurrying past most of these downstairs exhibits to get to the sharks, but they miss a lot. There’s a big tank that has a watery pathway overhead, thus requiring me to stand below it and say “Hey, look, I’m under water.” This is extremely clever every time I say it.

I point out the frog fish to everyone I can. Right before the shark tank and easily overlooked, they are the weirdest, most amazing creatures ever. They look remarkably like coral, with big lumpy bodies the color and texture of their surroundings. Most of the time they sit very still so finding them is a game, but if you are fortunate enough to watch them move, they use their flipper-like fins to push off surfaces in a motion that is simultaneously clumsy and graceful.

And then you reach the sharks. They are huge. Some look exactly how you’d expect sharks to look. Some look like half-shark, half-ray. There’s even a saw-nosed shark, but I have only seen her once. It was my third trip to the tank, and while I’d heard she was in there, she had a tendency to lurk towards the bottom and the back. But one day, there she was, swimming right across the front of the tank in full view. I stood in slack-jawed awe as those around me with better reflexes snapped pictures on their cell phones. I wish I’d gotten a picture to prove her existence, since I haven’t seen her since, but I tell everyone I can that she is in there and I have seen her.

As if in answer to the tank of the “under water” joke, the rays hang out in a tank under the floor with a glass top. Little kids and I run into each other as we try to follow the path of a specific ray.

Back up the elevator and then down the stairs to the back the odd sensation of sunlight welcomes you to the Oceanarium. I remember my first school field trip to the Oceanarium. It was a big deal when the Shedd created this massive addition, and they had a dolphin show, which is fascinating to any 8-year-old girl. It was way cooler than the one at the Brookfield zoo, and they had so many more animals. These days, I shrug off the dolphins to go laugh at penguins trying to jump around their rock formation and squawk at one another before gracefully diving into the water and zipping past in circles.

I never cared much about the belugas until I learned about the pregnancy early last year. Now, the aquarium has a second theme song - Rafi’s Baby Beluga - and I follow the calf’s progress like most people stalk celebrities. I watched it go from a lump in its mother’s belly to a small gray turd occasionally heading up for air to a molting gray turd nursing from its mother to a beluga whale in with all the others, only slightly smaller and darker. The Shedd just announced another pregnancy - same father, different mother. Move over, Britney and Kevin - I will continue to get my gossip under water.

Realizing it was already February and the visiting komodo dragon and lizard exhibit were scheduled to leave distressed me greatly. Sure, I loved the aquarium before the lizards, and I certainly would continue to love it once they were gone, but they were the sprinkles on my happiness sundae. I did a report on the green iguana in third grade and wanted one as a pet ever since. Then I met Faust. Faust is the komodo dragon hanging out at the Shedd. Most people have to pay extra to see him, but I get to waltz past with my member sticker. He is seven feet long with venomous spit, so even if he doesn’t swallow you whole (which he could) you probably won’t survive his bite. Yet he has been raised in captivity and will come rest his head on the laps of his favorite keepers. Move over pet iguana, I clearly need a komodo dragon. And great news! He and his lizard friends are staying at least until summer 2008.

My membership is about to expire, but while NPR and starving children throughout the world vie for my checkbook, my aquarium membership goes in the category of required expenses alongside rent and groceries. Because, really, is there anything more awesome than the aquarium? [sung:] Aquariuuuuuuum!