Believe It Or Not
What would he boys want to see more? Elephants or the elephant man? A popular zoo or someone who can pop his eyes out of his head?

Duh!

When they heard that there was a Ripley’s believe it or not display, they were so excited that he HAD to add it to our itinerary. It was located in the Air and Space museum. Balboa Park. Not that far from our hotel.

The Prettiest-girl-in-the-world got us there without a hitch.

Inside, there were drones flying above our head. Beneath them, the Apollo 9 gumdrop capsule sat looking like it had been through a war or entered the atmosphere or something. There were moon rocks, models of the whole Apollo 9 rocket, space suits…

And the boys politely looked at all of them, but their eyes were constantly glancing towards the Ripley’s display.

So, not wanting to torture them anymore, we went in.

There were all sorts of horrible and grotesque things, so the boys had the time of their lives. Wanna see a guy stick a huge cockscrew into his nose and out his mouth? They got a vid of that. Want to see a totem of some sort covered in flayed human skin? They got that. How about an astronaut carved inside a needle?  Yup, got that, too. Want to see a man who can dislocate his entire body? Guess what, they have that on vid, too.

There was a car made out of wood, the world’s smallest production car, a replica of the world’s tallest man, little picture-like blocks on the wall filled with all sorts of cool facts, a short movie about Ripley himself and plenty of hands on things to touch like a life-sized operation game.

The boys bounced from display to display, eager to get to the next one.

The youngest one found a set of boxes he could crawl into. He loved that we couldn’t see him. Oh, we could hear his giggling, but he was gone from our sight.

The oldest dutifully completed the quiz they’d given him, finding all the answers to questions like who owned the moon and

The Prettiest-girl-in-the-world loved the carriage made out of jade. Not a model carriage, an honest to god carriage that could carry at least 2 people.

I loved a video screen where I could make all sorts of things go forward or backwards or stop, things like a glass breaking, a dog wagging water of itself, music making waves in milk. When the oldest found me, I think I may have been talking to myself. Pretty, so pretty, yes, yes it is.

The oldest measured himself against the tallest man in the world. At least a robotronic version of him (the tallest man, not the oldest.)

The two of them played with magnetic gears. I tell you, if there was something they could touch, they touched it, and if there was something they could touch that made sound, they touched it at least twice, and if it was super gross, they had to be dragged away from it.

But the fun, the bestest fun, was when they saw the megalodon mouth. Perhaps their most favourite creature in the world. If they could have lived in there, they would have. As it is, when they can clone something, they’re gonna clone a megalodon. And ride it.

None of us broke anything. The Prettiest-girl-in-the-world didn’t throw up when she saw the stuff made out of human skin. The youngest didn’t injure himself on all the pointy things. The oldest found more amazing and disgusting things that he could see in real life. And me, I was so sad there wasn’t a t-shirt made out of congealed bull semen or something.

We all had such fun.

But there was still a whole museum to see.