Kill Joy

Fifteen years ago in a spat over who did and who did not show up to launder dirty schmattes from a cast-load of Annatevkans, my Fiddler On The Roof castmate and fellow costume crew member looked me in the eye and said

“Ann, you are a kill joy.”

It took me aback!

Especially because what he actually said was

“Ann, you shit on everything beautiful.”

While this comment—voiced in full round tones of Thespian anger—occurred in the heat of a costume crew mutiny, I could not deny the truth at its core.

I do not come from people necessarily described as “fun loving” “carefree” or “free spirited.” We of the planning, preparing, and rational-minded decision-makers
“enjoy ourselves,” and have a “perfectly nice time.” We aren’t known to throw much caution to the wind, and when we do, we do so cautiously.

However, when Maggie invited me and the boys as her guests on a last-minute mega waterpark outing Tuesday, I responded in the affirmative. I didn’t hesitate. Maggie knows me, and she later admitted to some surprise at my enthusiastic and unwavering “Yes! Okay! We’re In!!” even if I did follow it up with “GOD HELP US ALL.”

Prior to yesterday, the words “water park” meant the following to me and my people of non-spontaneous, non thrill-seeking, non adventurous stock: 105 degrees, one hour lines, too many mammals in too many half-shirts, and seventh circle of hell vertigo accompanied by overheated, whining, mini treat-mongers. I’d never taken my kids to The Wisconsin Dells. My last visit to a water park occurred in the late 1980s–a birthday party invitation accepted out of my desire to keep up with my fun-loving, carefree, free-spirited friends who craved heights and traveling at high speeds, as opposed to say, the lazy river or “I really just want to lay out so I’ll hang right here on this chair next to your parents.” See also 8th grade ski trips and the snack bar.

But I knew taking my kids to an alternate water universe for the day would thrill them beyond anything they could imagine—for the fun they would have, but also because I said yes. I SAID YES! WITHOUT HESITATING! TO EXTREME FUN! with them, and not parallel to them while trying to get 25 other things done.

Tuesday brought cold and rain, and we brought ten people in two vehicles to the biggest and emptiest parking lot since Wally World. Instead of foreboding, this meant one thing–no lines. We plunked down our refundable deposits for wetsuits and spent the day twirling on tubes, plunging down people-chutes, and getting power-washed while free-falling in sensory-deprivation darkness, only to get regurgitated out of an Anaconda mouth.

“So how about that dinosaur head?” Maggie asked me after our two-woman plummet down the Water-Boarding Black Cobra Spiral of Death Not Necessarily for Creaky Grown People Especially Not Backwards ™

“What dinosaur head?”

“You didn’t see that enormous dinosaur head?”

“You mean when I wasn’t crying and screaming SAVE ME JAYSUS?”

But it was fun. Each of us did something a little scary, and hugely increased our fun quotient as a direct result. I got a day off from screen-time warden/sugar monitor/inappropriate-determiner, and the boys got a day off from my nagging, procrastinating, and doling out consequences. I saw more smiles and hugs from my kids yesterday than I have all summer, and I couldn’t stop smiling watching them smiling. I felt so proud of us for challenging ourselves a little outside out of our narrow comfort zones, and I could tell my boys were impressed knowing Mommy got vomited out of an anaconda.

Even if this kill joy had her eyes shut.

***

Congratulations to Cheryl from Deckside Thoughts, winner of the giveaway on my last post: Lela Davidson’s book of essays “Blacklisted By The PTA.” Cheryl please email me (annimig@yahoo.com) so I can give Lela your mailing address.