*Remember, everybody. A Buddy Christ picture means that an old writing of mine from a previous site has been resurrected. See, it’s clever. Not non sequitur. I don’t want to be Ms. Non Sequitur with the random religious pictures.
I have a pretty horrible sense of direction.
If I have any other thing I can devote attention to, I will totally tune out directions, my surroundings, important people. It’s terrible, and as much as I can try to focus, my attempts are thwarted…by interesting conversation, my innermost musings, music, etc.
I have navigational ADD. This is why I can’t easily explain how to get to places I visit all the time. On top of this, I freak out if I get lost: I imagine having to start my life over in this new, unfamiliar place, I contemplate running in front of a bus to end my discomfort, I hate relying on the kindness of strangers who could easily take advantage of me. So…this is my explanation for the following most embarrassing moment.
In sixth grade, my school drama club went to Schlitterbahn on a weekend trip. I was excited, because I had never been to this water park. Also, I hadn’t yet been convinced by the media that I look funky in a swimsuit. I was ready to tube and doggy paddle all day.
My group consisted of probably twelve kids led by Mrs. Payne, my friend Nathan’s mom. Mrs. Payne was nice and had brought grocery bags of drinks, extra towels, and a huge bag of Cheetos puffs. I loved Cheetos.
Our group took over a picnic table next to a hot tub area, because Mrs. Payne thought we’d all be able to find it easily. I don’t know why everyone at the park was so cool with just leaving all their stuff on the picnic tables, but that’s what everyone did. Of course, I had noticed that there were many similar picnic tables around the hot tub. My solace was that my table had my brand new Fossil zip-up bag with my stuff in it. No one else had this bag. In fact, my dad bought it the day before from a limited supply.
I went on and had fun in the sun. Our group ended up separating. I gravitated toward the kids who didn’t like dunking innocent people. When I was really jonesing for some processed food and a dry towel, I set off in search of our picnic table.
It was really hard to find my way around the park after all the time I’d spent ignoring my surroundings while blindly following Mrs. Payne. Finally, I spied the hot tub…the picnic tables…my Fossil bag. I was so ravenous by this time that I just tore into the Cheetos bag and with one hand, started shoveling the crisp cheese puffs into my mouth. I moved my groups’ towels around to get to my Fossil bag.
I opened the bag to be confronted by a pair of sandals. Sandals that weren’t mine. I think I knew that I’d messed up, but my brain sped ahead in denial. Surely someone in my group put their sandals in my bag. Hmmm… When I noticed unfamiliar albeit dry towels in there as well, I came up with the notion that someone had attempted to steal my Fossil bag by placing their belongings in it and taking mine out. I imagined someone from my drama club foiling their plan by coming to the picnic table for a drink from the ice chest just in time.
I started to feel nauseous and everything went into mute and slow motion. I started to look around and nothing looked familiar. Not the hot tub, not the stuff surrounding my Fossil bag, not the older couple sitting in lawn chairs staring at me and pointing. Watching me go through their bag and eat their Cheetos.
My eyes filled with hot tears - the kind that stand and just get reabsorbed into shame and embarrassment. I stepped back from the picnic table. I didn’t put anything I’d removed back into the Fossil bag. I didn’t close the Cheetos. I walked away without meeting the eyes of the older couple and dropped my handful of Cheetos into the hot tub.
I walked until I found an unoccupied park bench I’d never seen before. I waited to be found.
Ok, ok, I know I’m commenting on an ages-old post, but I just found your blog and decided to do the traditional thing and start from the beginning.
Anyway, I had to comment, because I had almost the same exact experiance, only mine happened at a lake, and the person whose bag I was going through was a girl a few years older than I was. But seriously…all I wanted were the Cheetos, too.
I feel like a cheesy co-survior.
-Carissa