What do you do after sharing a mud wallow with 50-ish kids, inviting them to cover you completely with as much mud as they can, tossed, splatted and smeared from your hat to your toes, all over your clothes and skin, for nearly two hours?
Well hell, first, of course, you bask and revel in the smiles and laughs, both from the kids and from the parents. Because that was just fun--the entire point of the Mud Games exercise.
Then you might wonder a bit at yourself, since you didn't plan to be That Crazy Dad, specifically, going in. It was just the right decision at the right moment. "Made sense at the time," and all that.
When it breaks up, you do the initial wipe- and shake-off, then scrape the 1"+ layer of mud that remains after that off your hat and torso, and permit the better half to garden-hose you from head to toe, with water that is really exceptionally cold. (This is an outdoor tap in Alaska, after all.)
Finally, you make it back to the car, quietly transfer what nobody has noticed from body to an available Safepacker, and improvise a change in clothes for the drive home.
Some days are more gratifying than others. :-)
About Me
- Kevin Wilmeth
- Shameless guerrilla learner. Advocate for voluntary humanity. Professional geek. Substantial threat to musical instruments everywhere.
5 comments:
??? Why did you do that???
Don't worry. That Safepacker fits nicely under a Carhartt shirt-jac. :-)
Oh, that sounds like wonderful fun! We used to come home from hunting or camp with the scouts with mud from head to toes. My boys had a reputation among their friends for having really cool parents. :)
Luckily, the water from the hose in So. California was usually not too cold. I thought you were having a serious heat wave there in Alaska. LOL
Anyway, congratulations for being the really cool Dad.
Oh, we certainly have had a warm early summer so far. Records all over the place.
That makes no difference whatever to the water. Up here at least, we discuss water temperature using the following terms:
- Hot
- Warm
- Cold
- Tap Cold
There is a reason for that. :-)
- Tap Cold
Indeed, we have some of that here. All of our pipes are buried deep to survive the winter, so the tap water is always very cold. I would imagine it is colder there.
Nice change from California where, sometimes, "cold" tap water could actually be hot enough to scald you at first - and most definitely when out of a garden hose in the summer.
I was just teasing. :)
Post a Comment