And on this day, I owe that one employee at Phipps an apology. Please understand, this tiny creature is subject to emotional outbursts and is easily saddened immediately after moments of great joy and vice versa. Basically, she's a yo-yo of feeling. But you knew that.
The thing is that Phipps is currently operating with a one-way path all through the greenhouses and such. That means that if you want to go from one side to the other, you basically have to join the beaten path and stroll as if you were a visitor. That's the explanation for why we've had a Phipps employee stuck behind us through half the place multiple times.
I mean, we go there every two weeks, so it's hard to say what's common. I just know it's common for us.
ANYWAY. This time we ended up with a very polite woman who was wearing a Phipps name badge stuck behind us all the way through five or so rooms. She was very respectfully maintaining a good distance and I'm sure she would have liked to pass us, but there's not really space. And so, she followed.
She followed as Mila stopped to look and throw happiness towards every freakin' cactus in the cactus room. It's all fine and dandy, but we've been there a few thousand times at this point. There is nothing new to see, child. Carry on. Ooooor ... go ahead and through verbal confetti at every single plant. It's fine.
From the cactus room, the path goes outside. On a normal day, you get to meander through the Japanese garden and stop for several minutes to visit with the pond fish. Or at least that's Mila's plot. She runs across the bridge a few times, looks for the fish that was injured, and checks to see if there are any new baby fish. I know we know the answer to that, at least at this time of the year, but whatever. It's Mila's thing.
Except, it snowed a bunch Saturday night and Sunday morning. The paths weren't clear through the Japanese Garden, so the whole area was blocked off.
Mila, with the Phipps employee in tow, BURST INTO TEARS. Like, sobbing. "BUT I NEED TO SEE THE FISH ... WAAAAH." She was very dramatic and acted like she wasn't there literally two weeks ago. So much sadness. Because FISH.
Let's all remember that we have similar fish in our pond in our very own backyard. Mila is obsessed with them as well, but it's not like her only chance to see fish is at Phipps on that one random Sunday where we're free to stop by. AND YET. She carried on with her sadness for a very long time - all the way through the Train Room and most of the way through the Cuba stuff and wow. That kid knows how to cling to misery.
The poor Phipps employee had to listen to the whole thing and she clearly doesn't have a Mila of her very own at the moment, because she legit felt bad for the kid. I was all, "Get over it," but the stranger was all, "Oh, you're so sweet. You poor thing. I am so sorry," and so on. She apologized on behalf of Phipps a dozen times.
Not that it mattered. Mila was all in on holding the grudge.
Today, a full day later, Mila burst into my office to ask a very important question. "Mom, do you think it was that woman's fault I didn't get to visit the fish yesterday?" Because if so, I'm going to need her address."
Look out, woman!