A New Flaska Adventure

Well, it's Tuesday night, the girls are asleep and Dion is in Texas and I am lost as to what I should be doing. Wait, I take that back. I know I should be cleaning and doing laundry, but I'm not. And it feels good. I am so far surviving another stretch of being a single parent. This is the fifth month in a row that Dion has had to go out of town for work, and not just for a day or two. These are almost week long trips. He comes back on Thursday night at about 10 PM. Each month I say the same thing, "I give single parents so much credit". And I do. It is hard work with a significant other. It is purely exhausting alone.

So I know you are anxious to hear about the new Flaska adventure, and I am just as anxious to tell the story, so here it goes.....

This past weekend we decided to pack up the kids and tool out to the Mall of America to what was formally known as Camp Snoopy, but is now known as The Park at the Mall (until a new sponsor steps up. Rumor has it Sesame Street will be it....I dread 100 foot Elmos all over the place giggling like fools). We buy our tickets to get on the ride and find out that as parents (chaperones, as they call it) we get to ride for free. Score. We head over to the merry-go-round, since Claire liked it so much last year, thinking the same thing would happen this year. And it did. We waited in line, trying to keep Claire from plowing over other children and make it to the front. Claire picks a nice horse to ride on, and Nadia gets the ostrich next to Claire's horse. To be honest, they are kind of freaky looking, and really don't belong around kids. But that's another story.

The teenager makes the announcement that we are about to start and we are giddy with anticipation. And it starts. We go around about 2 times, enjoying the scarey music and waving at strangers when Nadia decides that the ride sucks. She wants off in a big way. She's reaching for Dion and crying, so he pulls her off the horror movie ostrich and holds her. Soon there after the ride slows down. I was thinking what a rip off. We only went around about three times. The teenager announces that the ride isn't over, so everyone should stand still. It seemed over to me, but what did I know? Then it happened. Dum dum dummmmmmm....teenager came over to us. To us? What was going on? Well, it seems that chaperones are not allowed to hold their children and Dion would have to find a bench/cart seat to sit on with Nadia. Oops. I kind of laughed since Dion was the one who got in trouble and made the rest of the horse riding kids wait. I didn't laugh for too long. Everyone (and by everyone, I mean Dion and Nadia) got situated and the ride began....again. Claire was still excited and told me to get up on the ostrich that Nadia was riding. Sure. Why not? I climbed aboard and proclaimed "Weeeeee!" until I heard teenager make an announcement over the PA. Again. "If you are a chaperone, you must stand by your child." Oops. I was pretty sure she was referring to me. Now, I didn't cause the ride to stop again, but being shame-shamed by the teenager was enough. Crap. We got off of the merry-go-round, and honest to goodness, we never went back. In fact, we didn't even walk BY the merry-go-round. Teenager probably would have made another announcement about the side of the walkway we were pushing the stroller on.

There you have it....our adventure. We can now say that we caused the merry-go-round at the Park in the Mall to stop it's operation, AND were chastised by a teenage girl earning her $6.15 an hour. Ok, I don't know if that's what they make, but she probably thinks she needs a raise after dealing with the Flaska's.