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Sam adores Thomas the Train. Adores him. He carries his Percy train around, kissing it and announcing, “I love Percy. I love trains.” It’s very cute.

So when we found out that Day Out With Thomas -- where you can take a ride on an actual, real life Thomas the Train -- was coming to Miami, we knew we had to take him. So what if it was two hours away? So what if the tickets were twenty bucks a pop? What price a child’s happiness?

Yeah, well. This is what you get for your twenty dollars: Get on the train. Ride the train as it moves very slowly down the track for about five minutes, stops, and then backs up in the opposite direction for five minutes. Repeat once. Get off the train. Get herded into a giant Thomas merchandising area. Go home.

Complete fucking rip-off.

Happily, we salvaged the day by heading over to the Miami Metro Zoo, which is about the nicest zoo I’ve ever been to, and Sam had a ball running around and saying hello to all of the animals: “Hi, Gorilla! Bye, Gorilla! Hi, Turtle! Bye, Turtle!”

Although, it was his third zoo in three weeks, and he was getting a bit blase about the whole thing.

“Look, Sam, a zebra!” we’d say.

And he’d shrug, as if to say, “Yeah, so? There are zebras everywhere. Oh, but look! A discarded bottle! Cool!”

Posted 13 March 2006 at 08:17 AM