Vol. 29 - Get Fucking Psyched

On making the best of it

Dude. Get fucking psyched. Because summer is officially here and summer means trips, vacations, school breaks, long weekends, and tons and tons and tons and tons of activities for your kids.

You’re going to take your kids a lot of places this summer. Some, like the beach, will be great for you both. Others, like soccer or tee-ball or swim lessons, will be a blast for them, but less thrilling—though still mildly entertaining, especially when they wipe out—for you.

And then there are the places like Disney World or Great Wolf Lodge or any variety of Six Flags, which may border on hell for you, dear Holder of the Backpack, trusted Keeper of the Snacks, sturdy Mom or Dad Who Has to Carry Your Exhausted Forty-Five-Pound Son or Daughter the Entire Half Mile Back to the Car on an Eighty-Five Degree Day.

Because when you are a parent at Great Wolf Lodge or Disney World or Great Adventure, there are only two ways to be.

The first way to be is miserable because you’re being trudged around a children’s fantasyland, forking $24 over to a teenager (who is definitely high) for a hotdog and a Coke before waiting in line for forty-five minutes to tear down a waterslide for less time than it took me to write this sentence.

The second way to be, of course, is fucking psyched.

And for the sake of your own sanity, it will serve you best if you just buy in, put the goddamn Mickey Mouse ears on, and have a good time.

One of the first things I noticed when we started taking our son out to places like theme parks, water parks, children’s museums, etc. were the legions of parents sitting off on the sidelines, looking bored or exhausted or both. They’re always scrolling through their phones, never looking up when they asked little Madison or little Creighton or little Braelyn in that all-too-familiar exhausted mom-or-dad monotone to stop doing this or that, to share or to use kind words or to turn their listening ears on or to do any of the thousands of things we ask our kids to do every single day in the dumbest and most annoying fucking terms possible (and to be clear, I’m not throwing shade. I am equally as guilty of asking my son to use gentle hands or kind words or whateverthefuckelse. And, to be clear, sometimes I’m that exhausted dad, scrolling through my phone, glazed-eyed and miserable).

And then I noticed the moms and dads who bought in, who figured, “Fuck it. I’m stuck in this overpriced hellscape of screaming babies and whining toddlers and stains of indeterminate origin and wave pools half-filled with urine for the next several hours. Might as well make the best of it.”

And I’m here to tell you, oh Nosewiper Extraordinaire, oh Gentle Kisser of Boo-Boos, that you can and should make the best of it.

Because, to quote a friend of my wife’s, to whom my wife once accidentally forwarded the Evite to the woman’s own bachelorette party with the caption, “Kill me”:

“Come and be fun. Or don’t come at all.”

These places aren't for us, my dear Compatriots in Exhaustion and Frustration. Except when it comes time to pay the bill. And gotdamn those are some serious bills. But that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy the day.

Because, at least until our kids are old enough to wander through Great Adventure or Carowinds unsupervised, scoring dimebags off the kid selling $24 hotdog combos, we have to be there and we have to keep an eye on them.

So why not plug your nose and dive headfirst into that pool of lukewarm urine? Why not hit the waterslide or the merry-go-round and have yourself a big cone of cotton candy, even if you’re certain it’ll give you ceaseless diarrhea in just a few short hours? Why sit on the sidelines when you can get in on the action?

Because there are only two ways to do these kinds of things and one of them is a whole lot more fun. Even if that involves playing Marco Polo in a pool full of kid piss.