Area Woman Has Freakout at Local Event

The 5K is tomorrow. Will I finish it? Will I be last? Will I freak out at the starting line and break down into soggy weeping tears? Will I kick a random GILF? I guess you'll have to tune in on Monday to find out. The suspense is killing me.

We went to the Taste of City last night. I was soooo excited. Why? There is no logical reason. I even leave work early (must be a big deal) and go home and change into shorts and apply sunscreen. I'm all excited and happy and looking forward to walking around in the sun and tasting food and watching AB play on the bouncy castles. I should have known better. I don't get that happy without crashing. R knows to beware "super-happy Mommy." I get my expectations up so high that real life cannot possibly live up to them.

OK, whatever. So we wake AB and she has a snack. Then R thinks of something he needs to do. Duh! How long have you had to do this? I have spent half an hour preparing to leave, getting all my goonie shit into a fanny pack, fer crissakes! If I'm doing all that you can be doing your crap! I wasn't actually irritated, well just for a moment. Then I was happy again.

We're all in the car. AB has her snack and her water. We have everything we need. I am sunscreened up. AB is wearing a light long-sleeved shirt, jeans, a cap, and sunglasses. We are so ready. Everything is perfect. We park. Get out. All going smoothly.

And we have to push the stroller about 1.5 miles to get there. WTF? I thought it was going to be a X location, and it was at X location plus a mile. Unexpected irritation #1. No problem, I love walking, am wearing comfy shoes, ready to go. It's pushing the stroller that's a pain in my balls. Even when we switch off, even when we both push it. Fine. We get there and head away from the screaming crowds to a bouncy section and vendors. Short lines. Goodness.

I have a point, stay with me.

AB gets on a bouncy thing that is unlike the ones she's used to. She does so, so well. She climbs the steep ladder like a champ. Two rowdy girls are racing and they practically barrel over her. I think she was afraid of falling. I walk around. She is at the top, crying, terrified. We're encouraging her to come down and see us, it's just a slide. She is paralyzed. I kick off my shoes and go over to the bottom of the super-steep slide. The kid manning the float climbs up to help her. She comes down. FAST! Much faster than I expected. I try to grab her, slip, and end up sitting on her.

What a save, Mommy! Sit on your child in a floatie! I wish we had taken the camera. I comfort her and she is fine. We recover. We discover her water turned over in the stroller and it's soaked. R is irritated at me because he thought I had put the little piece that keeps it from flowing out into it. Or maybe he's just irritated that happened. Or maybe he knows that when he gets irritated I don't get irritated; instead I go into soothe mode. He is uber-smart so my money is on the last.

We wander and look at the vendors. R shows AB all the art. She asks for a goonie fake rose. I am having a good time. There are not too many people in this section. I'm thinking, "man, they did a much better job this year." Last year was shoulder-to-shoulder people. Little did I know then.

We walk over to another bouncy area and wait in line for a good 30 minutes to see AB jump for 5 in a thing just like the ones at Jumping Jacks. That sucked. I did stand there and people watch, though, and remember thinking "G*d dammit why didn't we bring the camera!" This entry would be so much more interesting if I had snapped a few of the... the... humanity there. I saw a GILF with her nips poking out in a white cotton skirt. "Granny, white cotton skirts are not for you. Give them up now, as well as the f-me espadrilles. You look like a who-ah." Granny's eyes got really big when I said this. She said, "look who's talking? You're wearing a freaking fanny pack, you retard!" Then we hugged and went on our merry ways.

That didn't really happen.

I really need to get a camera phone, however.

So this is where it gets bad. We want to get AB on another bouncy thing, but the lines are outrageous on all of them. An hour or more. Simply ridiculous. I don't know why people would wait in a line like that. I guess if AB had asked to go on the giant sinking ship we would have waited, or split up to get food. But she didn't and we didn't and we all meandered our way slowly over to get food. It was 7:30. I was hungry.

I don't handle hunger well. I get grumpy. Is that a preface? Oh you betcha. This entry is way too long. You don't give a flying shit about these details. But I'm going to re-read this if I ever get an inkling to go to a people-mass-throng event ever again.

It took 10 minutes to get to the food. AB was out of her stroller and I told her we were going to find some grub. She was tired. She couldn't see anything but legs from where she was, so understandably she was bored. But she would not hold my finger. I had already seen one kid lost, and it was not going to happen to her if I had to hold her next to me by her flaxen locks.

So she gets grumpy. I get grumpy. R says, "Go get food Mommy I'll take care of her." I ask, "What do you want?" he says "Nothing, you know I don't eat at things like this."

WTF? Sending me off to get food in a throng, you don't want anything, and I don't know if AB will eat any of this crap? I'm pissed. I go. I get about 20 feet into the human flesh-cloud and realize there is nothing I want to eat, there are too many people, the lines are ridiculously long, I can't move, I can barely see. I feel ungrounded, vulnerable, and I can't flee. So I have a flight reaction. We were leaving. I was done.

I go back to get them. I tell him we're leaving. He tries unsuccessfully to talk me down from my crazy. We leave. AB drops her rose on the way out. We pick it up and don't give it back to her, just as we said we would if she dropped it. She didn't want to leave. That made me feel even worse.

I said I was coming to a point, so if you're still reading here it is.

I'm crazy.

I need medication. I hear good things about Lexapro.

Go check this out and have a wondeful weekend.