Balloon Animalology!

So this past Friday and Saturday, the university's teaching hospital hosted their annual open house. There were all sorts of things going on... tours of the hospital, petting zoo, mock surgery, and many, many tables staffed by particular clubs and organizations within the vet school. This is a very family-intensive event with tons of little kids coming with their parents, as well as school groups visiting on Friday.

Each vet student was required to work two 2.5-hour shifts, either leading tours or sitting at a table. I spent one shift at the Pet Hospice booth, where we helped kids make bookmarks and write notes to their pets, and one shift at the AAHA club booth, where we made pop-up animal faces.

That was fine. Except that... both of those booths bordered the table for the student chapter of the AVMA, also known as the balloon animal table.

With the possible exception of the mock surgery booth (where little kids got dressed in child-sized surgical gowns, caps, masks, stethoscopes, and gloves, and used forceps to remove felt organs from stuffed animals, then bandage them), the balloon animal table might have been the most popular exhibit with the under-10 crowd.

Those poor, poor, patient souls working that table. There were three students working each shift, and at times there was a line of 10-15 kids waiting for their balloons. There were all sorts of requests. Lots of kids were happy with a poodle (like the easiest thing to make). But then there were the creative kids who wanted a horse or a goat or a rabbit, and the smart-aleck older kids who requested elephants and platypuses (platypi?) and penguins and guinea pigs.

But really, the kids were pretty cute, and for most of the little ones, you could hand them a slightly modified balloon poodle and they'd be convinced it was a horse/goat/rabbit/etc.

The annoying part was the parents... I think I heard something along these lines about a hundred times over the 5 hours:

"Gee, ha ha, what kind of class do you have to take during vet school to learn how to do this? Haha!"

Yep, it's funny once or twice, maybe even 4 or 5 times. But come on, you really think you are the first person to come up with that joke today???

To their credit, the lovely students making the balloon animals were infinitely kind and patient:

• "Oh, we have to take the advanced class before we can make balloon animals at open house."
• "Well, actually, making balloon animals is a prerequisite for vet school."
• "This is how I made a living during my undergrad while I applied to vet school."
• "We have a school-wide competition and only the best balloon animal producers get to do it at open house."
• Etc.

All in all, open house was a neat event, despite the "spring storm" that threatened a foot of snow that never actually materialized completely. The best part is knowing that we helped raise awareness of the teaching hospital in the community, which means that hopefully we will have plenty of clients bringing their animals to us so we can learn from cases!