Tuesday, after my dentist appointment, I went to visit the Butterfly House in Faust Park.  I did this because I was in the neighborhood.  My dentist’s office and the nearby park are in far west county, almost on the eastern edge of Kansas City, or about twenty miles from home.  I don’t usually make it out there that often.  Especially over the last two years, when the New I-64 was undergoing construction.  But now the highway is finished and I was quickly whisked out there and back.

At the entrance to the Butterfly House, I was preceded by a large family group.  I waited for them to go in and then waited for them again at the ticket taker.  After they were done I walked up to the ticket taker and asked for a ticket.  She directed me to the three women directly behind me, she was just the ticket taker and not the ticket seller, don’t ya know. 

So I walked the five feet over to the ticket sellers and asked to buy a ticket.  One of the women said that I needed to go outside again to buy a ticket.  I said, “What?” and she repeated herself.  It was then that I noticed that the two other women were sitting at movie theater style ticket windows.  I stood there incredulous at what they were suggesting.  Eventually it dawned on me that they were in earnest.  So I walked outside again, thought about walking away, but walked up to one of the windows.  I asked the women now behind her teller window why I had to come outside again to buy a ticket.  She explained that it would not be fair to sell me a ticket inside the building, if someone were to walked up to the window.  She said it would be like letting me take cuts in line.  I then turned around and looked around, but not only could I not see anyone else in line, I couldn’t even see anyone else in sight.  I paid my money and then went inside again. 

I’m sure that my irritation with the butterfly ladies was at least half induced by my prior visit to the dentist.  There is nothing like a good teeth cleaning to put one’s teeth on edge.  That being said, I still think that those old biddies were just a bunch of flibbertigibbets*.   I later learned that my MOBOT garden membership would have gotten me in for free.  Grrrr!  Anyway the butterflies were nice.  I got a few good pictures, so mission accomplished.

* Flibbertigibbet is a Middle English word (c. 1540s) referring to a flighty person; someone regarded as silly, irresponsible, usually a woman.  😛

This movie is based upon an 8 mm movie that my Dad and my brother Chris made together.  I’m guessing that it was made in the late sixties, while we were still living in Maryland.  Chris said that my Dad made the original drawings based upon his observation of one of his boys walking.