A Fresh New Hell

Today I went on a field trip with my daughter, Mills.  We were going to a fruit farm, where you stock up on apples, gourds, and pumpkins.  I am familiar with the trip because I went with my eldest daughter, Hallie, and her class her second grade year.

I realize that I should be one of those Moms that really enjoys field trips, but I don't.  I do them, because my children pressure me to do them, and that is the truth.  Judge me all you want.  As Popeye says, "IYAMWHATIAM! UGUGUGUGUGUG!"

Anyway, the last time I went on the Fruit Farm field trip, an unexpected cold front swept in, which left all of the children and parent volunteers totally unprepared for freezing cold temperatures.  I am not kidding.  It was cold enough to snow.  It was absolutely miserable, and since then, for me, the words Lynd's Fruit Farm had become synonymous with AGONY, and today it did not disappoint.

I woke up this morning to a consistent falling rain and a twenty degree drop in temperature from the night before.  My first thought was, "Ohhhh Shit."

I kept checking my phone, for a cancellation email from Mills' teacher, to no avail.  For a second, I allowed myself to imagine what my day would be like if I had not committed to this field trip, and it literally stung me to my soul.  So I pushed it down to that deep, dark unspeakable place that houses all of my other unfulfilled fantasies like becoming a lounge singer and having a leprechaun in my basement that did all of my laundry (no spun gold for me beaaachhes), and I begrudgingly stripped down for a shower.

Now, I have not taken a shower before 10am in ten years, when I used to work.  It was all dark and rainy and cold out, and I would have promised my four-year-old, Eva's, children to the Devil to crawl back into bed. 

So, after checking my phone for the umpteenth time, I proceeded to get ready, (yes, blow dried and straightened my hair, peeps...okay, just the bangs, let's be real, and put on some day make up.  For those of you not in the know (i.e. you dirty whores that wear base in the day and full eye make up with lipstick and gloss to work out) that means cover up, a dusting of powder, mascara and tinted lip balm.

Anyway, I get to the school without a minute to spare, still half expecting the field trip to be cancelled, and signed in, while the office secretaries mocked me.

It was like being sent into battle.  I knew at best what my day was going to entail, and it was going to be 100 times worse than that.  I knew it.  The office secretaries knew it.  Mills' teacher knew it.  But, most of all, all of the Mom's knew it - some of which were on the trip with me two years ago.

I get on the school bus, which, in itself, is it's own fresh hell, and whom do I spy, but my friend, we'll just call her, Wendy of http://www.wendysgymnastics.com/, and she exclaims, "Ohhhh, there is only ONE thing better than being on a school bus, and that is being on a school bus with Johnna Underwood!"  Love her! Here she is!

After we got to Lynd's, I kept turning to bitch to someone, as we were stomping through mud or boarding the steamy, stinky, unbearable, overpopulated school bus and EVERY time it was Mills' teacher behind me.  I would have my mouth literally poised to complain about the wretched field trip and there she always was, just smiling at me like, "Don't you say a fucking word, lazy ass, I've done this 8 million times in all kinds of weather, and today, I am not only responsible for my entire class, but all of you whiny stay at home Moms, as well, because you seriously could not find your asshole with a poker stick, if it weren't for me."


Clearly, I am projecting, and I guess I shouldn't put words in her mouth, but let's just say if I were her, that is what I would be thinking.  So, I can only assume that that is what she was thinking.  Hey, I have a few teachers in my family, and you should hear the way they talk about parents when you are not around.  It is like an UAW union meeting.


 I finally couldn't help myself any longer and I actually told Mills' teacher that I kept wanting to "complain" (I didn't say bitch, y'all, which proves I have some scruples) to her, but I did not have the heart, because I knew that she had been through this a million times and that she was thinking the same thing that I was thinking this morning, but she had to just carry on and try to keep morale high, because she had to get through the day like the rest of us, only she had to actually TALK about the GD gourds and muddy pumpkins for two hours when we returned to the school!

So, we are freezing to death as we wait for the "outdoor tutorial" to begin, which precedes the ass soaking hayride we are about to embark on, and I took this shot of all of the Moms.

Would be a good name for a band - The Wet Mommas.

Okay, seriously?  To be fair, I had a huge sweater on under my coat.  Look how cute everyone looks, except ME.  I look like I could be a character in a Tyler Perry Movie.  Right after this picture, my umbrella broke.  Classic.

Then, we FINALLY get on the hayride, where the driver was smoking a stogie, and the children were singing.  On the outside it sounds really picturesque, but it wasn't.  It was awful.  I trained the camera on the bale of hay, because that is what my eyes were focused on during the entire trip.  It is a trick I learned from my therapist to keep me from having a panic attack.

You see, my husband picked this exact moment to call me like twenty times in a row because he had come home in my absence to pick up Hallie's violin that she had left, and he could not find it.  I mean, SERIOUSLY!!!!!!!!!  I could CUT a bitch.  So I call his phone and of course it goes to voicemail, and I hold my phone up to the screaming 2nd graders for oh, about 5 minutes, while they do screeching rendition of Old MacDonald, as the old wagon bounces us around in the the now sleeting rain, and then I follow it up with this text:

"Did you hear that?  That is why I can't call u.  On hayride.  U psychopath."

Finally, the hayride is over and we proceed to pick corn, gourds, and pumpkins, in the pouring rain.  Have I mentioned the rain enough?  And we are heading toward the buses, and the teachers announce that we are to eat as fast as we can on the sauna-like bus (which I need to point out has done wonders for my newly acquired adult acne) and then we can go home.  I turn to my friend, Wendy, and ask, "What next?  Is the bus going to break down on the way home?  How much more are we supposed to endure?"

I quickly devour my balled up peanut butter sandwich as I am standing up and sweating, and then I don't say a word on the way home, and we are rounding the corner of the school, and my friend, Wendy, turns back to me in a panic, and asks me for a bag because the child sitting next to her is about to THROW UP."  Niiiicccceeee.  Talk about adding insult to injury.  I decide right then and there that I am going to attend church this Sunday.  The child kept it together, but Wendy later told us that the child was literally heaving.

So, to wrap this all up I KNOW that it was the right thing to do to go on the Field Trip because if I had not have gone, I would (a) not have all this material for this post, and (b) most importantly, I would have missed THIS:

So, my advice today revolves around you and your child's teacher.  I kind of feel that every parent should operate under the assumption that your child's teacher thinks you are crazy.  It is your job, as a parent, to diffuse this stereotype, if you are smart, because once a child goes to school, you are in collaboration with their teacher to raise them. Therefore, you should treat your relationship as a partnership.  If you don't, you are just missing an opportunity to foster and advocate for your child, and isn't that what parenting is all about anyway?  Why not have an ally in the process?  That's just my take, for what it's worth.

Oh, and also, my friend Wendy uses nipple cream for lip balm ....And you thought I wasn't listening.  You know dis bitch be omnipresent.

Actually, said nipple cream is a bonus piece of gratuitous guidance for today. (It's the lanolin cream the doctor gives you when you are breast feeding, you perves!) I tried it when I got home and it works like a charm!!!!  Apparently, you can use it on scrapes and dry skin patches, too!  Thanks Wendy!