Monday, June 29, 2009

Panic at the Escalator

Obviously the summer months are not the optimum time for me to be blogging. I do apologize for going incommunicado for a whole week, but I am back now. There were many things that happened last week, such as a lake trip, trying not to kill my children now that they are not in school and are at each other's throats, etc.

But there was one especially amusing incident last week that I want to share with you. It started out innocently enough as a trip to Dick's Sporting Goods. My father and husband have birthdays a week apart, so the kids and I hopped into the Mom van and went shopping for campy kind of stuff.

We grabbed a firestarter for my Dad and then found a cool tent thing that we could use on our family beach vacation trip in two weeks. It's not a camping tent, more like a tailgating tent that pops up in one fell swoop. Perfect, but it weighed a ton. But that was cool too since it has rollers on it and could easily be drug wherever you need it.

Great. Now, I got everybody sorted out: Eldest in front with the little items, me in the middle dragging the tent that ways a ton and the Youngest was bringing up the rear. We headed down the escalator (can you see where this is going yet?) in the same order: Eldest first with small items, me dragging tent that weighs a ton, and the Youn- oh wait a minute - guess what? He panicked at the last minute (the child that is afraid of nothing) and pulled away from me and stayed at the top of the damn escalator!

I threw the tent that weighs a ton to the eighty pound weakling and said, "Here, you're on your own" and turned around. My brain took one hundredth of a second to gauge how fast the escalator was moving and tried to figure out how fast my legs were going to have to move so that I would not be jogging in place. I was now about 8 or 9 steps down and I took off, blazing fast, looking hopelessly hokey as I started hoofing it up the moving steps. Meanwhile, the Youngest was at the top screaming "Mommy! Mommy!" and at this time four really cute college age guys show up behind him, grinning from ear to ear. Jeez, wouldn't you just know it?

I got to the top step, grabbed a little arm and dragged him to the stairs and proceeded to rendezvous with the Eldest at the bottom who had somehow managed to grab the one ton tent and drag it to safety. Phew! What a workout. I wasn't even huffing and puffing at the end either, with much thanks to Ye Olde Adrenaline.

What a hoot. I laughed so hard I could hardly breathe. Oh, and yeah, the cute college guys did too. I'm sure they were laughing with me and not at me. Yeah, right.