Saturday, July 26, 2008

A Comedy of Errors


(insert 1000's of screaming girls) The Jonas Brothers (insert 1000's of screaming girls).
You know that saying, the road to hell is paved with good intentions? That kept going through my head as well rolled in at 3 a.m. last night after taking our kids to see (screaming girls) The Jonas Brothers (screaming girls) at Hershey Park yesterday. It seemed like such a nice idea months ago when Lisa and Christina and I joined the "Fan Club" to score some tickets. Everyone is going in a million different directions this summer, we thought it would be nice to do this with all the kids. Hmmm.... Interesting, the tricks the mind plays on you. No, it was fun. It was just a very very long day. Longer for Christina, when all soaking wet 95 lbs. of her decided that 5 grape vodka and lemonade martinis and staying out until 2 am would be a good idea the night before. She had planned on only two, they were just so good, or so we hear. She had to get up at 7.30 to go to a meeting and after a trip to McDonalds and some serious scolding at herself we all met at Lisa's to go. I drove Christina's car with the girls, Lisa drew the short straw and drove the boys. Get to park, park out in the middle of nowhere take the tram to the park. Things are going pretty well. One little glitch was when Lisa waited with most of the older kids for an hour to ride a roller coaster and her son Ethan couldn't get on because he wasn't tall enough, he made her get off too. She wasn't happy, he wasn't happy, the whole scene was unhappy. Christina had pretty much rallied by now, she had sucked down a gatorade and was feeling better.... until.... for some reason that still goes beyond me decided to take a ride on the tilt a hurl (as she calls it).

Then it was a little touch and go for a while. It's a spectacle over that at Hershey Park, let me tell you. I am the person who waits for everyone to get off the rides so we know where all 11 kids are. That was a lot of people watching time. If this park is any indication of America as a whole. Things could use a little improvement. It was actually scary, not as bad as Sesame Place, but friends we're not in a yoga studio anymore.
Let's move on. We do the park thing, its time for the concert. Lisa and I had given up our tickets out of the goodness of our hearts to her babysitter and her friend. They were dying to go, amongst the screaming fans. We didn't really care about seeing the Jonas Brothers so we handed them over. They all went in. Lisa and I waited for the shuttle to take us to the Hershey Hotel where we were eating dinner. It never came. I decided we could walk, after seeing the park people I thought, a little exercise never hurts. Well, it was far. Too far. We call the hotel and ask them to send a driver. They did. We loved John the driver, he was money (that's for you Lis). We ate a lovely dinner in the beautiful hotel, had some Mediterranean food, and a glass of wine and patted ourselves on the back for our decision making processes. After a couple of hours we decided we should head back. John carted us back and we got to the parking lot, thinking it would be almost over and we heard the chanting of thousands of voices, Jonas, Jonas. Oh my God, they hadn't even gone on yet and John had left. We had some serious time to kill. Lisa's attention was taken from me cause for some reason her husband kept txting her. I was bored. Lisa suggested a tram ride. So that's what we did, got on the tram and just rode it for a while. When we were the only people on it the driver called us tram groupies and we took a couple more trips. When we had enough of that we went back to wait and wait and wait. Clapping, it's over, yeah, no it's not, encore. Finally, at around 11 they all come out. We go to the tram and the watch as adults, women, shove us and our children out of the way to ride the tram first. It was frightening. Lisa said, "Can't we do this in a civilized way?" The woman who had shoved Ethan looked at her and said, "There is no such thing as civilized." Get me out of here. Lisa, Christina and I just looked at each other and shook our heads and waited for the next animal wagon to come pick us up. So we finally get to the car, everyone has to go to the bathroom, they're thirsty, wound up and Lisa's almost on dead empty. We sit for an hour and a half and wait to get out of that parking lot. It was a little bit of hell right here on earth. At 12.50 cars start moving. After the gas station stop we made it home around 3, Christina was totally feeling better by then. All in all, it was.... fun. The girls loved it. The boys hung. All I know is it wasn't Kid Rock, that's coming soon though.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

In 20 years from now, when your kids are in therapy "blaming mother", remind them of this day and what you all did for them. I bow down to your great "mom-ness". (Personally, I barely made it through the 1 hour Hanah Montana 3D Movie.)

Christina - the 5 lemonades I can understand, but ... the Whirl a Hurl? you poor thing.

Lisa - I am as baffled as you are about the way people behave. One of my favorite lines from Julie Andrews is "Manners matter". It is so easy to be polite/kind to another person.

Amy - I would be hanging with you -counting heads at the end of the rides. Again, thanks for letting me share in yet another one of your adventures - although this time "vicariously" definitely seems to be the right way to go!

See you all soon! (Hopefully I will get my jiggly butt to yoga...)
Kathy

Lisa Samuel said...

I am going to give us all a big "holla" for getting through this day, and really, none of us ever really lost their cool, I love that the most!

As for the clientel of Hershey Park, I grew up in Williamsport, PA and they make the Hershey people look like movie stars! We all can't be East Goshen Moms!!

@TiffanyRom said...

Oh my. That is straight out a nightmare for me. I HATE crowds...and most people. The tram ride sounds fun.

Sarah said...

You should have gone over to Chocolate World and rode the air conditioned ride. Silly girls!

Come on, Hershey isn't so bad. It is a theme park based on CHOCOLATE.

Sesame grosses me out. Public pool.. Ew! Remember the time we took S & C there and a diaper floated past us in the pool? We nearly waked on water to get out.. good times..

The hands down worst is Dutch Wonderland. It is AWFUL! Thankfully S & C have out grown that hole of an amusement park.. I still have many, many a anti-bacterial wipe carrying trips there.

Brad says Hi.. still working on an email address or cell # for you.

Simple Answer said...

All I know is I will never let my girls read your blog. You would sooooo win in the cool mom contest!

MsPicketToYou said...

you deserve a medal.

MereCat said...

As strained as those teen concerts are, it's so awesome that you have it in you to participate. My dad took me to see Shaun Cassidy when I was a kid and he HATED EVERY MINUTE and it was so obvious. They will remember you as a such a cool mom for taking them.