I have reached the pinnacle of my summer holidays – I’m taking acutal vacation time to help park cars at the Montgomery County Fair. Vince’s Boy Scout troop goes to the fair every year to help direct cars so they park in a straight line and not scattershot all over the grass field. Each scout has to work about 40 hours and each family has to contribute another 40 hours. For all this hot weather work, our reward is to be paid a handsome amount of pirate booty (cash) and have no substantial dues and no fees for camping/food and, perhaps best of all, no selling of random crap like caramel popcorn to our already overextended and overfed social circle.
I can not say that I’ve gone into this experience with a good attitude. I’m am a grumpy parent – a poor team player. I do not particularly like the fair (which is loud, hot, crowded, full of yucky food and expensive – which is the exact opposite of everything I really, truly love (a night at home with home-cooked food with my family and friends)), nor do I like to spend hours and hours in the hot sun next to exhaust fume, yet, this is what I have chosen to do. Also, if you know me personally, I actually dislike parking my own car – so the thought of parking thousands of cars sends me into a tizzy.
Also, the thing with boy scouts, is that the troop is boy lead, so do you see the boy pointing? He’s the head scout, so I take my directions from him – it’s been a long time since a 17 year old has told me what to do 🙂
My main job yesterday was to flag cars that are coming straight at me to make a right hand turn. I turned my flagging into a little dance/lunge thing to get a little exercise and not be incredibly bored. Turns out most people going to the fair are easily entertained. I will need to get a video of my little dance.
It is 8 am and I should get up out of bed to try and get this household running. Jeremy just landed at Dulles from CA (our anniversary trip hitchhiked onto his business trip) and so nothing is going to get done this morning unless I get my sorry butt from out of this bed and really, I’m procrastinating by writing about parking cars, but there is only so much one can say about parking cars. Of course, Jeremy and I split the 40 hours of adult parking – he chose not to take any vacation time, so he’s suppose to do a weekend shift today – but the poor thing had a six hour delay for his flight, so he ended up taking a red-eye in the center seat. I’m not sure if he’s going to be able to stand in the hot sun for 6 hours today without sleep. OK, OK I really need to get up now.