Nobody's Role Model

This weekend proved, once again, that I am a role model for nobody. This will come as a HUGE shock to my regular readers, I'm sure, since I've already bored you with stories of getting thrown out of a bar in Greece, taking a hostage in the church parking lot, and impersonating my friend Ethel just to take a photography class. So why should this weekend be any different? I'll tell you - it wasn't. I snuck into a water park and didn't pay a cent!

My brother and his family were staying at a water park about an hour from my house, and since they are usually more than three hours away, I thought we should try to get together. Friday night Richard Bonomo and I drove around forever in the woods, which were beautiful, unaware we were barely half a mile from the kiddie mecca of water parks and other random tourist attractions (including alligator feeding and an upside-down White House) where the restaurant was. We finally found it, and when I told our Bulgarian waitress that it was my half-birthday, she obligingly brought me a free sundae. A whole one, even... but I did have to share it with my youngest nephew, who pointed out that his half-birthday had been just this past Tuesday.

Saturday Rich and I went to a neighborhood picnic with my neighbor Hardingfele and her family, then I called the water park to find out how much it would be to join my family there. (They had weekend passes via their hotel.) They told me it was $40 for a pass or $9 for the mere privilege of entering the water park and watching other people go on the rides; this was after I was on hold for 20 minutes and transferred to five different people. It was the guy at First Aid who was able to give me an answer, so if you call a water park, my advice to you is to ask for First Aid right off the bat. It will save you a lot of transferring. I decided to wait until the evening and go out for the fireworks but was annoyed to see when I got there that they were having "Double Days," which First Aid had neglected to inform me of. So if I had bought that $40 pass, it would have been good on Sunday too! $20/day for a water park seems much more reasonable. Ah well, I thought, too late now - I'll pay the $9 and watch the fireworks. However, they wanted $5 just to allow Erin Caitlyn O'Honda to use their parking lot, so I went off in search of free parking. Free parking was easily obtained across the street, but then I couldn't figure out how to get to the main entrance, so I simply entered an open gate that said: "Authorized Personnel Only." (Sometimes the superpower of invisibility comes in handy; men may not notice me, but neither do water park personnel!) Anyway, I bought overpriced flavored ice and ice cream in little beads to share with the niece and nephews, so it's not like they got no money out of me. The fireworks were very fine, and then I headed home and arrived about midnight.

Sunday after Mass a bunch of people were visiting town, including Bella Maryella, the friend who left me her hedgehog and electric mandolin before she headed to the East Coast. We all went out for brunch, and then several of us went for a walk in the zoo. In the evening I went hiking at a county park with Cecil Markovitch and the single B-Boy, then we went to a Mexican restaurant Cecil had tried with another friend - he loved it and the friend hated it - to see what the B-Boy and I thought of it. Cecil thought the mojitos were too weak - although he allowed that they were very flavorful - but we all enjoyed our food. They had three desserts on the menu: plantains, flan, and tres leches cake, and we couldn't decide, so Cecil got plantains, I had the cake, and the B-Boy had the flan, then we tried each other's. They were all delicious, but in a happy coincidence we each liked our own dessert best. Then I had to stop by the grocery store to buy bananas, because I had run out, and the rabbits would have revolted this morning without their daily banana fix. And who wants to deal with revolting rabbits?

Famous Hat