My husband is no longer invited along on family activities

I haven’t left the safety of the indoors for at least a month now.

When I do leave, I sprintasfastasIcan to the closest air conditioned shelter, whether it’s the car, the office, back to the car…. I am simply not interested in finding out if I am meltable or not.

I’ve seen what being outside longer than a few moments will do to a person. Irratibility. Profuse sweating. Pit stains the size of the Grand Canyon. Extreme embarrassment. Death. (Of the people laughing at Pit Stain.) Ice cream rationing. Serious illness caused by eating frozen dinners frozen.

It’s excellent practice for the Zombie Apocalypse, though. When that time comes, most of us will stay indoors to avoid the crazies, like we’re doing now to avoid the heat. (That’s just plain good old advice for avoiding crazy people in general, too.) I have learned through this dry run that I can handle it. For exactly one month. Then out comes the crazy.

This past Sunday I had had Enough. Rattling-and-pounding-on-the-windows-like-someone-in-the-psych-ward ENOUGH. In a state of desperation, I talk Mr. J into buying two season passes to the local zoo/waterpark: one for me, one for him, and Junior’s free.

(I LOVE having kids. He eats free on Wednesday nights at Bob Evans, too. All this free stuff!!)

My logic for a trip to the waterpark: MAMA NEEDS OUT RIGHT NOW. There is absolutely no place outdoors we can take Junior and expect him not to end up a fried egg on the sidewalk, but if we get him wet his chances of being soft boiled, instead, are a tiny bit higher. Sold to the only bidder!!!

But in my freon-induced high, I fail to notice how badly I’ve just f-ed up.

Mistake #1: Getting a membership for Mr. J.
Mistake #2: Inviting him to come along.

Two painful trips to the waterpark later and I’m thinking I would have been better off staying indoors and bashing my head against the windows until something shattered. (Then at least I could have had some amusement in Mr. J trying to fix the windows/my head/our relationship/etc.)

This is why my husband recently received a “You Are No Longer Invited” notice pertaining to any and all future family fun days at the waterpark:

First of all, it takes 45 minutes from the time we enter the gate to the time we actually park the car not because it’s busy, but because he keeps arguing with me on which row to go down to find the closest parking spot, goes the wrong way down one row, and ends up driving right back out of the goddamn park. Then the process begins all over…

The man smugly thinks every woman who happens to glance his way is checking out his hot beach bod. Correction, honey: they’re checking out the adorable, pudgy-cheeked little baby you’re carrying and they’re silently plotting how to steal him.

He also thinks it’s okay to take Junior down a 20-ft adult water slide and chastises me for “over-parenting” when I suggest this is the worst idea I have ever heard. Then, as I wade around at the bottom of the slide to catch the baby when his father comes out at 90mph and Junior goes flying throw the air,  I notice an increasingly loud, howling, animal-whose-flesh-is-being-pecked-apart sound. Oh, it’s Junior!

(Then I swim away as fast as possible so nobody notices I’m with Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Crybaby.)

Ten minutes after we get there Mr. J “runs into” his friend. Thirty seconds later and I’ve got 5 kids pulling on me and the guys are nowhere to be found. Just call me the Wife to Babysitter Transformer. It’s cool.

Thirty minutes after that, the guys magically reappear with beer. I ask for a sip—A SIP!—and Mr. J says, frowning, “Do you really think you ought to be drinking in front of the kids?”

To top it all off, Mister won’t let me buy any of the mouth-watering fried food sold at every corner because it’s “unhealthy” and “too expensive” and “we have food at home…”

(what are we, our parents??)

… but the man buys a $32 cup he can get $1 refills in for the rest of the summer. Then looses the cup.

So due to the unfortunate circumstances, daddy is no longer invited to go to the waterpark with us. Maybe without him following us around I’ll get a cute guy over the age of 4 asking if I want to go down the slides…
Junior’s just going to have to sit this one out.

Images in this post courtesy of Free Digital Photos and Wikipedia. Photography courtesy of moi.

All Things Unlearned chronicles my journey in unlearning everything I already thought I knew through my experiences as a wife, a mother, and an American through funny, overly-opinionated, witty, sometimes offensive, and yet always entertaining banter. Come be amused.