The last two days I took three of my former students who have been working for me to Great America as part of a way to show my appreciation for their help. I pay them too, but I guess this was an employee benefit too.
The day started very early on Friday at like 6a. Keep in mind that this is by FAR the earliest that I have been up in nearly two weeks. I picked up Braden, then the Hutter boys and started to head down to San Jose. But before we could leave town, we had to stop by the Evil Empire (aka Wal-Mart) so that Zach could buy socks. I had also left my sunglasses (pick a place cause I still can’t find them) and I needed them for the drive down. For the first time in nearly three years, I shared some of my hard earned income at Wal-Mart. I almost threw up a little. I will say that I needed a shower after going into that hell hole.
We finally got on the road and the trip was pretty fun. Zach got his finger stuck in my ring sizer that I had in my car. So his brother Matt has to do the same thing… twins… go figure.
When we stop to use the restroom I get bombarded with wet tissue as I use the bathroom. This should have been a sign, but I just shake it off. We get to the park and I was completely astonished… no lines. Literally… we rode every major ride, with the exception of the Grizzly which didn’t open until noon, in under an hour and a half! That’s never done at Great America. It was freaking sweet. The only ride that had a line worth noting was the Grizzly for three reasons. One, it was slow as all get out. Two, it was amusing (I know I’m going to hell for saying this) watching all these fat people try to squeeze into these little cars. Finally, it where I parted with my water bottle of two months that fell out of my bag.
We kept just going around and around riding pretty much anything we wanted. We went on water rides when it was raining. I got lucky because the swinging ship that does a complete revolution was shut down because of the weather. Then when the guys finally convinced me to get wet, they shut down the park. Two for two in the department.
We got tired of the park and decided to head to the hotel. By now, I’m tired, getting ragged on by three teenagers, and hungry. NOT a good combo for anyone to be around me. I booked us at a residential suite hotel because it gave us more room to move. When we got there, Zach started to complain about the hotel. I think that was it. I snapped back and said well I could just drive us home instead.
Now I’ve worked with teenagers pretty much my entire life. Yet, I’ve been out of the camp business for about three years now. I’m out of shape when it comes to dealing with teenage boys residentially. It’s exhausting, frustrating, and annoying all at the same time. From my prospective, I organized this trip, paid for their hotel, most of their food, the gas, my time, and energy so that they could have this experience. True, I wanted to go too… which is part of the reason why I put it together. However, I forget just how ungrateful teenagers can be. Not all of course… and I’m not saying these guys were not grateful for trip. But its sooooo much taking and very little giving.
By about 8:30 after trying to play poker, I was done. I had hit my wall. I suggested they go play basketball outside. I just regrouped and watched a movie. When they came back I was fine. But I was just about ready to go off before they left. I think it’s kind of weird for them too because I was their teacher before being their friend. Now, they are comfortable with being friend, but now don’t respect boundaries of authority with me. They were blowing me off last night when I was asking them not to bounce the basketball in the room and that just sent me over. Then again this morning when I said we needed to get going and they were like fine just leave us, I got my things and headed out the door. It’s amazing how far a thank you will get you.
On the way home today, I suggested we stop at Ikea and play one of my favorite games… hide and seek. Ikea is great because it comes with all the fun pieces to play the game… decoys, lots of hiding places, and designated boundaries. We played for nearly two hours moving from area to area so we would get detected by Ikea employees. So much fun. But when it was enough, they kept pushing me. I hate getting pushed because I’m become a prick. But by then, I didn’t care. Boundaries were going to be established.
The rest of the ride home was pretty uneventful and overall the trip was great. I’m just going to regroup and exercise myself out so I can just get back to groove next week.
RIP Water bottle…. you will be missed.
