Maturt Mondays... You're Only Young Once, But You Can Be Immature Forever

Maturt Mondays... You're Only Young Once, But You Can Be Immaturt Forever
I should know. I'm a living testament to immaturtity and constantly jacking up the stakes. Yes, I wear my immaturtity on my sleeve like a medal earned during battle. It's just the way I've always rolled. Deal with it or get the hell out.


One summer while the kids and I were at our lake house, my San Antonio friend came to stay for a couple of weeks with her two puppies. Luckily, my other friend who owned the two houses closest to ours, offered that my friend could stay in the guest house of the house next door. Since my friend didn't have any children, I felt that this was a wise choice. She's never had an overwhelming tolerance toward children, so limiting their exposure to one another is mandatory for overall peace. Especially once she's gotten a couple of cocktails in her.


One day, we decided we'd take the kids out and pull them around the lake on skis or the Water Weenie or the tubes. It didn't really matter as long as it wore them out, right? The kids were both being particularly annoying back at the house, fighting and squabbling over every little thing and I was ready to just play Cowboys & Indians with them, wherein I tie them to the nearest stationary pole or whatever. Then I leave them.

Not wanting to deal with Child Services, I nixed that idea. However, my S.A. friend just happened to bring some really good vodka with her, then suggesting that Vodka Therapy might help with my coping skills. Oh Yeah! Like Child Services wouldn't be all over me then. However, I was having an extremely bad day, so my thinking was wacky to begin with and I just didn't give a damn.


Like two mischievous children, we plotted how we would achieve this with the two real children present. It was decided that we would coerce the children to watch the movie with snacks and quietly made our escape to the outside, where we could smoke and drink, uninterrupted, on the veranda. I was beginning to have my doubts about the positive effects of said Bloody Marys and wasn't even sure I could handle *Adventures In Parenting* that day. Oh Wait. That's right. I didn't have a choice, so I dealt with it.

Not sure how I was going to handle the boat, kids, dogs, skis tubes and the endless array of other toys to wear down the kids, I went inside to rally the kids and get out on the boat. I figured I was safe out there, on the water. Out There. On The Water. I knew the water and knew the lake and was sure I could gain control of my senses once I had the wind blowing through my hair. Trying to get my two kids, my friend and her two puppies, plus get all the things we'd need for the day, into the boat, turned out to be an exercise in near futility. It took twice as long as normal to get everyone on the boat and settled, then an amazing amount of trips back up to the house for all the things we'd forgotten on the previous trips. I have no doubts that, to the untrained eye, we resembled something very similar to The Keystone Cops.

Finally everyone was on the boat and we couldn't think of another single thing that we needed. Fine. Finally. Good. I hit the motor for the boat lift so that it would go down and we could make our escape to open water. I proceeded to wear their little butts out, over and over. They were such little gluttons for this kind of treatment back then and it helped me work out a few aggressions of my own, at the same time. (Insert evil grin here.) After days like this on the lake, I could always be sure they would be tired and ready to go to bed upon request. All while I was busy getting a tan. It was a win, win situation all the way around.

So anyway, at one point we decided to stop while we ate the sandwiches we'd made and brought with us. It was fairly windy and the boat kept drifting toward land, so I had to keep starting the boat and moving it. Starting the boat and moving it. At long last it occurred to me that we had a brand new anchor, so I got it out and threw it in the water, safely tied to the boat. I'm no dummy, right?

We always took good music out with us and we'd all dance on the boat like a bunch of nut cake restless natives, which I guess we were, actually. But, we always had tons of fun. I swear that to this day, my kids know the words to every song ever done by Rod Stewart, Billy Joel, Journey,Garth Brooks, Chris Rhea, Heart, and the list goes on.

When it came time to pull the anchor up, we had only one teensy little problem. It wouldn't budge. I drove the boat forward, backward, sideways. You name it. I tried it. I thought about tugging harder on it but had nightmare visions in my head of the damned anchor emerging from the water, airborne like a rocket, and headed straight toward someone's head. So, I didn't go with that idea. I truly tried anything and everything within reason.



Then, I had to make a choice. Cut the rope and write off the new anchor or stay until someone came along to help. Having never been a much of a *stay-and-wait-er*, I cut the rope and we were on our merry way. So what if it was a $150.00 anchor? I had children to wear out and dinner to fix. I knew my priorities, By Golly!

In no time, we were back out on the water and I was beating the children to a pulp, figuratively speaking, of course. It was always a game of whether or not I could *throw* them off whatever toy they were on. In the game, it was ever so easy to toss their little rag doll-like bodies through the air and into the water, but I had to let them hang on sometimes. You know. So they would think they had won and would come back for more. I've always been evil that way.As it almost always was, we were all wounded soldiers by 3 or 4:00 PM, retreating to the house and the cool of the shade and the air conditioning.

As we approached our little cove, then our dock, I thought something looked odd, but wasn't quite sure what it was. Something didn't look right. Then, we all saw what had happened.

Apparently, I had (under the influence of *so many* Bloody Marys) forgotten to turn the lift to the off position. As a fail-safe, the lift motor had a feature that, rather than allow the motor sit there running in the down position for the day, it automatically kicks into reverse. It kicks itself off only AFTER proceeding to the very top. *Sigh* All the way through the rafters, to the very top, where it died a slow and painful death. While we were out having our fun. Hmmm.... it was turning out to be a rather expensive day at the old lake house. Knowing I was in trouble, I didn't exactly handle it well.





Mind you, my children were never in any danger. I was the only one I ever hurt in any number of ridiculous situations I would get myself into. However, it was during times like these I wasn't all that great a teacher about how to handle life's little problems. Evidently, the children learned these skills elsewhere.... I think I was more of an example of how not to act. Okay, it might have been an actual meltdown, but it's all kind of fuzzy now.