arachnophobia

A couple of weekends ago, I was at the most Magical of Springs, standing with a friend, watching my youngest and her son ride some insanely small airplanes around in a very slow circle, under the careful eye of The Most Meticulous Ride Operator Ever.  The ride is not over yet, he kept announcing over his tiny PA system. Please do not unbuckle your belts until the ride is over.  Just a thought, but if you have to tell people the ride is not over, then perhaps the “ride” is not going fast enough for anyone to actually get hurt.  Seriously.  I could have lapped that thing speed walking.

Strangely enough, after the Interminable Wait To Get Off Of The Nearly Motionless Ride, our two boys opted to ride it again.  Which is how I found myself lounging against iron rail, openly gawking at the people passing by. And in turn, how I noticed the woman carrying a body up the hill past our ride.

It was one of those moments when your eyes are trying to adjust – what am I seeing here?  A mafia hit?  She’s so casual about it!  Oh no…wait…

“Jennifer,” I said, aghast. “Look at that.  That woman is carrying a LIFE-SIZE SPIDERMAN DOLL.”

She turned around and laughed out loud. “Where did she get it?”

“I don’t know.  I guess she won it.  Wouldn’t that be a nightmare?  You’d have to take that thing home!”

We were wandering the park in hopes of running into my husband, my older son, and his friend.  We’d been separated from them for a couple of hours, largely due to my extremely intelligent idea of taking his iPhone and putting it in my pocket.  Smart, right?  That way, if I need to find him…well, I can’t.  But I CAN easily find MY OWN POCKET.  What can I say?  Amusement parks make me delirious.

Jen and I eventually talked the boys down from the tiny airplanes and crossed and recrossed the park, never finding the phoneless three.  Finally, by the front gate where the junk booths cute little stores are, we found the two boys – who had been given strict orders to stay right there by The Dad who had gone to look for us.  I was so relieved that we knew where they were, that everything was okay, that we could finally go home that I immediately volunteered to go retrieve all the stuff from the lockers down the hill.  Jen would stay with the boys.  I turned to leave.

“Miss Jennifer,” Jonathan said from behind me, “look what I won!”

Yes.

Yes, yes, yes.

A hundred rings in a bucket.  All three were throwing with abandon at the glass bottles, plastic rings flying every which way, pinging off walls, the ceiling.  They got down to the very last ring.  Bryan handed it to Jonathan and – ADD ever at the ready – began to turn to walk to the next thing.

DINK!  The last one.  Stuck. On. The. Bottle.

The carnie game operator gaped at Bryan. “I’ve never seen anyone actually DO that!”

Suffice it to say that she wasn’t the only one who was more than a little freaked out.  Two weeks later, and I still have a mild heart attack every time I walk in the boys room and think that I see a strange man in red and blue tights standing over by the closet.  Or the beds.  He moves around alot.  He’s quick, that Spidey.  You should really watch out for him.