hypothetical post

Let's start this off with a bit of the bard, what do you say? In my limited Shakespearean acting, I once played the role of Puck from Midsummer Night's Dream. If you remember the end of the play then skip ahead. If not, at the end of the play Puck arrives on stage and says:

If we shadows have offended,

Think but this, and all is mended,

That you have but slumber'd here

While these visions did appear.

Meaning: What you are about to read didn't really happen and you aren't reading this blog post, you are having a dream. I can't get in trouble for what I am about to write because it isn't real life. (How's that for a literary disclaimer?)

My weekend you ask? Eventful. 

Boys had a Boy Scout campout that is quite involved and includes running a gambit of challenges and obstacles throughout one night. It is so involved that the adult leaders go up the day before to set up and some two days before. This was shaping up to be brilliant (other than the rain).

Can't you just hear the birds chirping?
What could go wrong?

I had some big fancy schmacy executive council luncheon and meeting Friday and could not leave town to go and help the other adult leaders until that afternoon.

They didn't turn my umbrella inside out so I consider it a good fancy meeting.
My understanding of meeting decorum comes from Disney movies

The campout was at a local Boy Scout summer camp that I happened to work at for 10 years. I know this place better than I know my wife. My relationship with this camp is as complicated and I may love it almost as much. It feels as much like home as anywhere else I have ever lived. I didn't arrive until dusk and as it has been 10 years since my last visit, I may have cried a bit. 

I bebop down the gravel and dirt roads from memory headed to where I was to meet the other adults. As I make the last turn, I drive through what I remember being an enormous mud hole known as "the quagmire." I am immediately grateful that I made it through and get to the end of this part of the road only to find an enormous rock. This road? Not a road anymore. It is now a trail apparently because cars/tractors kept getting stuck. I will just back out. Nope. Stuck. Over the hub.

If I had been allowed to modify the dad van....

I get out of the car in my fancy schmacy meeting clothes and walk the remaining few hundred yards carrying my gear in a light drizzle. This should have been the sign...

Eventually, I find out that I am camping a half mile away and get a ride there and get set up and change clothes. Around this time I get the text saying, "I think I have a broken radiator hose." Not good. Turns out it was the whole radiator

Maybe this only happens in our house, but every time I leave town the world melts around The Supermodel. Kids getting stitches, heirlooms broken, etc.

She get's the car dropped off, deals with kids who didn't have the greatest day ever and survives. She wakes up at 6 am with a migraine to needy kids. What could possibly be next? 

 A series of text messages were sent as my phone was losing its battery life that are private and will remain between her and I.  The major point driven home was that I will never leave home again and that when I got home she was leaving and may never come back. I love my wife and she handled the car and took care of everything and was mostly venting but during this text message exchange, my side of the world got interesting as well. 

if she had written in all emoticons

Friday night, a deluge happened where we were. No one around me got any sleep due to thunder and lightning and enough rain to require an ark. I had a phantom allergic reaction come up just before bed and had taken a Benadryl and slept quite well, only waking a few times. 

All of this rain meant that the boats required for one of the events planned had to be emptied. Two men who were less than able bodied had brought pots to bail out the boats and it would have been 12 hours to make this happen. I walk over and begin the process of hauling the boats out of the water to flip them over when; I bend over to unmoor one and my phone drops into the deep end of the water in the boat. 

You can't read confrontational texts underwater so there is that.

I move quickly to retrieve it and where I step the causes the boat to rock and settle on the side that I was now standing on. The water then goes over the top of my boot, filling it with water. 

Spoiler Alert, I didn't get to change said boot or sock until 11PM. This happened at 8 AM. My foot is still prune-y.

Do Not Ever google image search prune feet.
My feet weren't that bad and I will never complain again.
Hence pictures of dried fruit. 

I got the boats emptied, phone in pocket to dry out (in the midst of trying to calm a quite heated matriarch is bad timing to say the least), and walked with a bit of a squishing sound back to where I was and sat down on a post to calm myself down, get over it, and tell myself that it would all be okay. It was not. Apparently that post had been colonized a large family of fire ants. I spent the next hour feeling phantom ants crawling across my lower back/upper rear end. The problem was that none of the ants were actually phantom ants they were real ants. I now have around 1 kajillion ant bites along my lower back. Every time I reached back, I interrupted an ant in the process of trying to bite me.

slowly saying "nom nom nom"

 Recap time: I have been gone 12 hours, my wife is leaving me, my car is stuck up to the axel in a quagmire, I have one wet boot/sock/foot, a dead phone dripping lake water, and now am in the midst of having my butt chewed on for an hour by fire ants. This was supposed to be relaxing.

After all that, I am not sure what happened. It rained quite a bit but the boys and I had a great time camping and ate well. The Supermodel got to spend time with El Fox’s new best friend and her family.

I do know what I saw when I got home Sunday. The small two ran to the door to greet me and were screaming for me gleefully. I quickly unpacked outside and hung up all of my gear and clothes to dry and/or wait to be laundered. The older boys rode the bus with the troop so; at this point I am by myself. I walk into the house after getting my gear squared away and I see El Fox being chased by the Dino through the house. It appears as though they have been running amuck for the weekend. I can see where The Supermodel has been cleaning obviously. She put in a solid effort and had been beaten back. Attrition is no way to lose a war. Being trapped with them at home with no car must be her own personal hell.

The only place worse to be stuck at than home with your kids.
File this under: Oh dear god please waterboard me instead!

So, they are chasing one another through a minefield of play food, matchbox cars, blocks, Legos and God only know what else. I then notice that she is wearing a princess dress and heels carrying her toothbrush and toothpaste. That is odd enough. I then notice that her pursuer is chasing her with his older brothers toothbrush. I am now following him in this parade of nonsense while wearing camping clothes covered in red mud. Kitchen to Dining Room, a loop through the living room, down the hall to their bedroom. This is where I found The Supermodel asleep in The Fox’s bed. 

Let's all pretend that she was sleeping with a smile on her face with her hair done.
Maybe I can get some points back for not describing the truth. 

I said nothing, ran away, showered, cleaned up toys, loaded the princess and The Dino into my car, and ran away in fear. Several hours later, after getting the older children, we returned home and had a lovely evening and were all in bed before 8.

Let us remember our Shakespeare, I didn't say anything bad about my wife. She is a delight. You are just dreaming all this while sleeping prettily.