It's All Her Fault

The kiddos and I joined my mom, my sis and my niece at a local water park today. The kiddos love this water park and were very excited. My mom was most excited by the new rolling cooler she had bought and was using for the first time. I know I have talked about my fear of creepy/crawly/fliers before on this blog, but let me take a moment to provide a little more detail. I will zero in on one of the scariest creepy/crawly/fliers - the bee. It all started with this woman. She is the matriarch of our crazy bunch, but don't let the angelic face fool you. Once upon a time, this woman was traveling with her two young children. She noticed a bee in the car. She pulled over, jumped out of the car, and tried to talk her two young children through the process of getting out of the car on their own. Luckily, this was a very long time ago, before all the safety features of car seats were in place (remember, my sisters are much older than me - I just love saying that) and they were able to get out of the car successfully and unstung. Through no choice of our own, and with the exception of my sister Doe, all future generations have been afflicted with her verging on crazy fear of bees. I see it happening in my own children, and I know just whose fault it is. Yep, that woman pictured up there.

Anywho, it started as we were walking into the water park. My niece, who has some weird spidey like senses when it comes to detecting bees in the vicinity, started freaking out, saying there was a bee on my beach bag. I tried to be cool, glanced down, and yes, it was totally on my bag. Still playing it cool, I prayed quietly that it would fly away. And yes, proof that prayers work, it did fly away. TO MY ARM!!!! Okay, no more playing it cool, I dropped the bag and ran screaming, completely prepared to abandon my bag and everything in it. Did I mention this fear verges on crazy? Luckily, my sister Doe was with us, and she calmly picked up the bag, rolled her eyes at us and kept walking.

But it was too late. The bees were on to us. My mom, the little man and I got in line to buy our tickets. I glanced over at my niece, who might have appeared to the untrained eye to be suffering from some sort of fit. But I knew the truth. Her spidey senses had detected bees. My girl, who was standing with her, began screaming and dancing the 'I'm afraid of bees' jig. My sister Doe? She tried to look nonchalant, no doubt hoping any onlookers wouldn't know she was with us.

Fast forward to the lazy river. It is always the first thing we do, kind of a warm up to all the running and sliding to come. After contorting myself into one of the inner tubes (not a pretty picture) and allowing the little man to climb in with me, we began the lazy river-ing. Enter the bees. Well, it was one bee to be accurate, but it felt the need to join our little family flotilla of tubes. Cue the screaming and splashing by my niece and my girl. I laughed at them. Then it touched me. I began to frantically windmill my arms and flail my legs to try and get away from the bee. I couldn't do anything else because my bum was jammed into the middle of the dang tube. In the process, I almost tipped me and the little man. Oh, and I might have been screaming. It was a pretty traumatic event and my memory is still a little hazy. The lifeguard, who had been preparing to jump in and save us, after realizing we were not only fine, but that the whole ruckus had been caused by a bee, couldn't help himself from laughing out loud.

And do you know whose fault all this is? Yep, this lady.