As a teenager I spent my days and hours and minutes trying to figure out how to get in the limelight. I was all that and a bag of chips – or so I thought.
As an adult, I hate the limelight. I want to blend in with oblivion. However, God has a sense of humor and gave me a family who attracts attention like bugs on purple light buzzing the whole way. The grand-opening to the water park was such an occasion.
Everyone expressed an interest in going to the grand-opening for the local water park. I had not really considered it because it was during working hours and my husband worked. Why couldn’t I take the kids? You have got to be kidding. Now do not get me wrong I love water, swimming, and water parks. But people – not so much. Me in public, lots of public, plus in my bathing suit, with or without my cover-up. No way. I only had a bathing suit to prove to myself I was not as big as the ladies who had to wear t-shirts and shorts to the beach.
However, Tony, my crowd-loving husband, wanted to go to the water park. He came home early that day and said he had told his boss he was not feeling well. The fact that he would fib to go to a water park was completely ludicrous to me. Justification came easily to him because the day of the grand-opening was free of charge.
Now this part is a little blurry. I have no idea how he talked me into going. I am queen of getting everyone excited to do something and getting them packed up in the car and then letting them know I am staying home to rest in my silence and regain the sanity that often evades me. But this time before I knew it, I was surrounded by hundreds of people and snotty kids – in my bathing suit. We were all standing in line, with my girls close behind me to hide my worst side, waiting to get in the park. A storm came up as is often the case in Southwest Florida, and we were told to wait out the lightening under the shelter of the portico. Of course we were too far back in line for the shelter to be of use.
At this point I had no idea where my husband and son were in the line. I guessed they inched their way toward the front. I am not a rude or pushy person, not that my husband is, but I have no idea how he makes his way to the front of most crowds without anyone getting mad at him. Of course, I dutifully stay back at the end of the line because this is the right thing to do and being right is more important that being first.
Over an hour passes and the crowd is getting restless. People are beginning to leave. Me and my daughter’s inch closer. Finally we are under the portico. Up ahead in line, I hear Andrew. Now I know some Mom’s claim they can pick their crying child out of a hundred. Unfortunately I have never been able to put this to test because my child is the one crying when the other hundred are not, so it is quite easy to pick him out without the visual.
Let me take a brief interlude into my story here and tell you that Andrew has Asperger’s Syndrome, which is in the autism family. He is very vocal though. He is prone to throwing himself on the ground and screaming bloody murder when he does not get his way. I know for a lot of children this is normal in their developmental stages, but Andrew has been doing it from about 1 year to well now at 10 years old. When he first started doing this over the silliest things I was so worried about what people thought and disturbing the people around me that I instantly did whatever he wanted to calm him down or I gave up what I wanted to usher him out of the vicinity. Looking back, this was a grave mistake and may very well be the reason he is still doing this today. (Now let me tell you a lot of people told me at the time not to give into his temper tantrums but those people were not me standing in my introverted-self having everyone look around at them. I am sure what I thought they were thinking of us was probably way worse than the truth would have revealed. I realized – which took several years – I had to separate my issues from his. And my issue was I did not want the attention drawn to me, no matter the cost.) My son learned from this and in his older years began warning me what would happen if he did not get his way. The temper tantrums are few now because he knows the consequences will be severe for him and not for me.
Now back to the water park: I couldn’t, of course, push my way through the crowd. So I told the girls to stay there and watch for Tony and Andrew and I would go get the car for a quick get-a-way. I vaguely thought I heard Tony calling to me above the noise of the crowd, which I would have killed him for because remember I am in my bathing suit and besides who does that – it is so rude – and he knows I feel about attention. I drove the car around and Tony and Andrew were waiting with the girls. We left with no further incident. On the way home, Tony explained they had pushed their way to the front of the line and when the employee of the park announced the park had closed Andrew had a “meltdown”. That was what I heard when I went to get the car.
The rest of the night was fine. We went to bed.
I awoke to the phone ringing. Tony had left for work and it was time to get the kids to school. My friend from church was calling. She wanted to tell me she saw us on the news last night. I thought for sure she was mistaken. Thanks to the glorious internet I pulled up the story and viewed it myself. With complete shock there was Andrew on the news having a complete conniption for the world to see. Screaming “how can you do this to me,” literally. Then the camera goes to Tony who explains he took the afternoon off work to bring his kids to the park. (I wondered what his boss thought since he went home sick.) I was mildly irritated thinking to myself ‘I cannot go anywhere with them without the whole world knowing, first on the TV and now online.’ Then to my utter horror I was on the screen. Tony was calling out to me and the camera; yep you guessed it, got a wonderful shot of my worst side – my back side, in my bathing suit, walking away from my screaming son and yelling husband for the entire world to see. I could have died right there.
This was not the first time I told Tony I would never go anywhere with him again but it was the first time I wholeheartedly meant it when I said it. Unfortunately like other painful times we go through (giving birth, dinner with the in-laws, dental consultations) we forget…
