Wednesday, January 19, 2011

water torture and other things

I'm attempting to leave a message on Destiney's voicemail.  I sit through a tinny version of  "Santa baby, won't you hurry down the chimney tonight" and then a voice belonging to a five-year-old wishes me a happy holiday.  I take issue with parents who can't spell their children's names correctly and cell phones that make me  listen to outdated holiday songs.  It is snowing a lot and Destiney doesn't want to drive to work. Yes, I will work your hours.  Destiney's destiny is going to be unemployment.

There is a fierce site before me. Pale bodies churning and grabbing for the light, falling, clinging crazily to each other, a jumble of tormented glistening human flesh.  And the screams, oh god, the screaming won't stop.  Has Dante's Inferno opened  in front of me?  No, I am at the (shudder) water park with the grandchildren.



Water parks are the result of a society gone awry. The concept does not promote healthy community interaction. I am standing in a smelly tub of murky water teeming with bacteria and strangers are splashing and hurling themselves at me.  It's not right.
I like the water slides but they make you go through a torturous ascent that includes rope ladders that no middle-aged woman should be expected to climb. On the way there are several stations equipped with water-shooting machines and weasel-eyed school bullies wait for me to cross their line of fire.  I must resemble an unlikable teacher at the alternative middle school because I get shot a lot.
I dump out my bag of fruit on the table below the sign that says, No food from the outside allowed on these premises.  I glance around me, steely-eyed, waiting for a challenge from a roaming staff member.  I have a planned response and that would be, I'll stop bringing in food  when you start providing healthy snacks.  All is quiet and no rebuttal will be sounded today. In gratitude I purchase a pizza, fennel cake and pretzels with cheese at the snack bar.
"Nobody moves or the kid gets it."
Cleavon Little, Blazing Saddles
 
My group consists of two grandsons and one step-granddaughter, half-sister to a younger daughter who is half-sister to the two grandsons.   My obituary will have names of step- grandchildren, half children and whole children and a note that says I tipped well.

After six hours in a damp swimsuit I say, home,
children, home.

4 comments:

MrDaveyGie said...

geeeepers Dawn, you could have ended up in prison for the rest of your life for sneaking food into a waterpark. WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?!?!?!?!?!?

Lorflor said...

Hey! Guess what the word of the day was on merriam-Webster? CAVLIER. Ha ha! I say kudos to us.

6 hours at the pool/park. Wow. I say good thing you brought your own fruit. Although someone might argue that that was rather cavalier of you.

Lorflor

Lorflor said...

Excuse my typo.

dawn marie giegerich said...

When I was in Colorado dining in my son's vegetarian restaurant Jason told me that the young man who waited our table said I was "intimidating." I say, WHAT? I questioned Jason later about this and he said yeh, that's the way he feels about all women. So, there.