The one with Santa and "the incident"(s)

No good comes from the phrase "the incident." You're basically saying "that horrific thing that happened that should never be spoken of again" but you also know you're gonna have to tell it now because nobody lets the word "incident" go unexplained. 

You know if I titled this 'The one with Santa' you wouldn't be reading this right now. You're here for "the incident." Or as it goes with our family, the incident(s).

My research for this blog (yes, I do research, don't look so surprised) entailed messaging our family members and asking if we have any incidents in our history involving Santa, specifying not counting the incident of 2020.

See. Now you wanna know what happened in 2020, right? Sorry. As the saying goes, what happened in 2020 stays in 2020. Therefore the incident with C*v*d Claus gonna stay in the vault. As will the incident involving Santa's unfortunate dismount from the mechanical bull I persuaded him to climb onto for a picture at my birthday party this year. *Zips lips, throws key* 

One of these days we're gonna run outta Santas willing to come to our house.

Anyhoo. Zac was the only one who responded to my in-depth research and answered, "The year I pooped my pants at dad's work party during pictures with Santa."

Unlike the pants pooping incident in 6th grade when he blamed the smell on Victoria until I picked him up from school, I'd totally forgotten about the one with Santa. The incident in 6th Grade was like, 2005. The one with Santa was 2016. He was 22. I  guess I blocked that one out. I remember now though, and it was very much an incident.   

In more recent years an incident happened that didn't directly involve us. Last year we'd taken our 4 grandchildren on a train ride to "the North Pole." Santa visited our train car and everyone was served cookies and the kids all received balloon animals. Everyone was having a great time, but before we could reach "the North Pole", the train stopped suddenly and we were surrounded by firetrucks, police cars, and ambulances. We had no idea what was going on, but once we started moving again an announcement came over the loud speaker: "We are now heading back to the station. PLEASE do NOT put your balloon animals in your MOUTH. Thank you."

So basically one latex intolerant balloon licker ruined the North Pole for everyone. Nice.

It obviously wasn't enough to ruin our experience because we went back again this year.

Same setup: Train ride, the "North Pole", Santa, cookies, and balloon animals because the operators of the Santa railroad apparently maintained their faith in the common sense of humanity. Adorable. They did make one change however, and brought in Lucky the libations elf to serve adult beverages. (Suspected connection to the chaos of last year's incident but unconfirmed). So if you needed a little somethin' somethin' to take the edge off, you just yelled "LUCKY!" and voila. Until Scarlet, age 6, called for Lucky and we had to wave Lucky a never mind.

Shout out to Lucky the libations elf. We kept her busy.

Ron had opted for the seat across from 2 strangers. He loves strangers. As I've explained before, on his solar system of relationship priorities, strangers are his Mercury, baby. 

I was sitting directly behind him with 2 of our granddaughters when the strangers found out we'd done this train ride before and said, "Must be pretty good then, huh?" to which Ron replied, "Welllll, last year there was..."

I interrupted from my seat behind him, "Ron, no." But of course he ignored me,

 "....the incident."

And as if that weren't enough he continued,

"Somebody almost died."

For Ron, the only thing better than strangers is making dramatic announcements so when his 2 worlds can collide, it's a Merry Christmas. 

But hey. If it prevented them from licking their balloons that day, I'll allow it. 

On the upside, we made it to the North Pole this year but the downside is that "the North Pole" turned out to be a stop at nothing where the train simply reversed and headed back to the station, so my apologies for resenting an allergenic child for an entire year. 

It was when they took our family picture that we noticed Hays, age 5, lookin' a little...weekend at Bernies, ya might say. But she held it together the remainder of the ride.

Back at the station, everyone was crammed in the isle waiting for permission to get off the train. Scarlet and I stood behind strangers and the rest of our family was behind us. Nick leaned up and whispered to me, "Hay Hay says she's gonna throw up." 

Okay, confession time. Did I switch me and Scarlet places with Nick and Hays, putting the backs of unsuspecting strangers in the line of vomit? Yes.

But have I seen Hays vomit over the top of Scarlet and witness the chaos that ensued? Also yes. Cue Kearstin's wedding and the vomit covered flower girls.  

My sincerest apologies to the guy in front of Hays who took the hit and everyone there who witnessed the stampede-like departure of our train car with Lucky the libations elf nowhere to be found. 

I can hear next year's repeat riders now:

"Wellll, last year there was...the incident..."

The one with Nate Bargatze, a dead body, and most of my triggers

If you don't know who Nate Bargatze is, start googling and enjoy the cleanest most hilarious comedian you'll ever see, in my opinion. I seriously can't say enough about his perfectly dry delivery of relatable topics, minus raunch and profanity. It's refreshing. 

Our adventure began when Ron bought tickets to take Caymen and me to see him in Cleveland. I was super excited because Nate Bargatze, but also not excited at all because Cleveland. 

I'm an introverted homebody. If given the choice, I'm staying home. When I am persuaded to leave the house, it better not involve excess traffic or people. And Cleveland just sounds traffic-y. And people-y.

I agreed to go to Cleveland, but he couldn't convince me to book a hotel and spend the night. It's 3 hours to Cleveland from here. That's a day trip. Nate Bargatze is totally worth a day trip. Not so much an overnight. Homebodies have a system and charts about these things. 

Halfway to Cleveland, I said out loud to no one in particular, "I'm excited to see the show and I'm excited to go back home." Fellow introverts relate to that statement. Extroverts will never understand. Ron and Caymen are extroverts. 

Our first stop was Harry Buffalo because we ate at a Harry Buffalo before the Big Foot Festival and after researching their online menu, we knew exactly what we wanted when we got there. But first we had to drive around and around and around Cleeeveland to find freakin' parking. 

You know where we never have to worry about finding parking? 

Our driveway. At home. 

After battling entirely too much traffic and parking lots charging $50 for 6 hours we didn't need, we finally found an empty spot in front of a meter and dropped in enough quarters to cover the amount of time we'd need for dinner. Then we walked the 2 sketchy blocks to the restaurant. 

And that's when we passed the dead body wrapped in a quilt and I stopped dead in my tracks. (Unfortunate pun, kind of intended.) Ron looked from me to the quilt and quickly said, "He's just sleeping" and guided me away from the doorway it was lying in. Um, no. Sir. He was stiff and straight, completely still, and wrapped head to toe in a quilt. That's not somebody sleeping. That's a dead body. 

In the very next doorway we passed a pile of poop so Ron thought it'd be a good subject change to announce "that's human" because nothing brings your appetite back from a dead body quicker than a pile of human feces. Seriously? Couldn't just let me think dog poop, huh? 

We arrived at the restaurant and let's just say that the Cleveland Harry Buffalo was nothing like the Hocking Hills Big Foot Festival Harry Buffalo. I can't believe I didn't see that coming. Right off the top, I was blocked in the bathroom for 5 minutes by 2 waitresses fighting each other. Then when I finally made it back to our table, we had a piece of paper with the words 'Limited Event Menu' written across the top. Code for- hope you're in the mood for a cheeseburger. 

Ron (aka; Spooner Senior, with his big feelings about his food demands) said "I'm ordering whatever I want from the online menu! I don't care!" I leaned across the table and whisper yelled "You damn well will care and you're gonna order something from this piece of paper because I know for a fact there are 2 waitresses here who will happily kick your ass and the last guy who probably 'didn't care' ended up wrapped in that quilt out there."

We ordered 3 cheeseburgers.

And they were seriously some of the best cheeseburgers we've ever eaten.

When we returned to our van, I was pleasantly shocked to find it just as we'd left it since throughout our entire meal I kept repeating "you know our van's being vandalized and we're going to be stranded here, right?" 

According to my therapist, I struggle with "catastrophic thought tendencies and abandonment issues." So then by all means play some sick game of trigger therapy with me and quit the practice with no forwarding address. But I digress. 

The body in the doorway remained unmoved, if anyone is curious.

We drove to the show where we then had to...you guessed it...find parking. We finally found an attended lot for $10, so we jumped at it. Then we walked the 4 blocks using GPS to the Key Bank Theater. But when the GPS said, "You've arrived" we were next to an unmarked building with fire escape stairs running up the side. We were standing there debating whether we were supposed to climb the stairs when I said "I think we should ask somebody." And Ron replied, "There's nobody to ask." 

Except that group of people that just passed us or maybe that guy crossing the street right now. If the introvert is suggesting we strike up a conversation with a stranger, you know things are desperate. 

He wouldn't agree to ask for directions, but said "Let's just walk with him." Yeah. Because silently joining him wherever he's going makes way more sense.

So we caught up and began crossing the street with him. Then I (the INTROVERT) turned to him and said, "Excuse me, Sir. Do you happen to know where the Key Bank Theater is?" He stopped in the middle of the crosswalk, looked at me like he was wondering if I was serious, and then said "It's right behind you." We turned around and faced a giant marquee with Nate Bargatze's face on it. 

Had we but just glanced to the right instead of crossing to the left we could've saved ourselves the humiliation of looking stupid to a complete stranger, which doesn't bother me at all. It still keeps Ron up at night.

Nate Bargatze was amazing and did not disappoint. As for the comedians who opened for him, the first 3 guys were pretty funny, the 4th guy no. As a whole, they did their job well. The first 3 guys, I mean. Couldn't stand the 4th guy, in case you didn't pick up on that.

*Pause for a couple of basic theater etiquette guidelines that apparently need reviewed*

1. Arrive on time. Come on. Unless you just found those tickets outside on the sidewalk, you knew you were coming to a show tonight. The ticket said 7pm. At 7:20, hundredsss of people were still pouring into the theater all casual-like while my anxiety rage-fired because the entire show was put on hold and then people were missing the beginning because entire rows were still having to get up and down to let people in to their seats. We had a 3 hour drive, found a dead body, ate dinner at a fight club, got lost, and still managed to arrive in front of the theater with time to spare before the doors opened. It can be done. 

2. I get that you're 6'4 and that's not your fault. But do you know what is your fault? That giant hat that you kept on top of your 6'4 head the entire show. Make better choices, lady. 

Now where were we?

Ah. We'd made it back to our van and I was excitedly messaging our kids that we get to come home now when it happened. I sensed motion beside my window and a strange man was standing beside our van trying to hand me a dead white rose while I stared down the barrel of a long gun he had tucked under his arm.

Okay, the gun turned out to be an umbrella, but it was dark, I'd been traumatized allll day, and in that moment I was staring down the barrel of a long gun so just stick with me here.

Caymen was in the seat behind mine and I turned in a panic to see how Ron was going to handle this. (His people skills are better than mine.) But the driver's seat was empty and his door was flung wide open. I assumed he was on his way around the van to be my hero, but turns out, he'd abandoned me to get himself a bottle of water from the trunk for the ride home. 

I had seconds to think this through. Refusing a gift from a guy with a gun seemed like a bad idea, but so did accepting a dead white rose before a 3 hour drive home. Not that I'm superstitious, but it's not a good look should the van flip and the coroner get called to the scene and find a dead white rose clenched between my cold dead fingers and bring this trip's body count to 2 in case you're not keeping track. 

So I decided to go with repeatedly saying "No thank you" like a super polite robot until he finally walked away and that's when I saw that his long gun was actually a long umbrella.  

My therapist would have a field day with this one, but of course she quit through no fault of my own, despite my husband accusing me of "Bob Wylie'ing" her, which I did not. 

But while we're on the topic of What About Bob, Dr. Marvin's 'Death Therapy' actually did cure him.

I'm not saying I'm cured. I'm just saying that ever since Cleveland, I sleep a little sounder, wake up a little happier, and stress a little less...as long as I'm in the safety of my own home.

Staring down the barrel of an umbrella changes ya, man.