Thursday, April 5, 2012

Smelled like teen spirit

So I survived the lock-in last night. I got there around midnight and the dance was in full swing. I knew this before I got to the gym, because about 50ft from the gym doors, it hit me. It was an awful combination of sweat, teen hormones, spearmint gum, Axe body spray and cotton candy scented perfume. Just a bit overwhelming. I went hesitantly into the gym and stood by the other parents who were stationed right by the doors, as far from the smell as possible. The kids seemed to be having a great time, except for the one girl who apparently wasn't used to staying up late and was already asleep on the floor in the corner of the room. We checked occasionally to see if she was still breathing, otherwise left her alone. A funny thing, the DJ was playing the typical rappy/techno stuff the kids listen to and they were all out there dancing, then a marvelous thing happened. He started playing Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" and all the kids ran out onto the floor and started singing along. All the parents were shocked that they knew all the words to a song that we danced to when we were in high school. Even funnier, though they all knew the words and stood together and sang the song at the top of their lungs, not a single kid danced. I guess that even though it's okay to know all the words to an 80's song, it's not cool to actually dance to it.

After the dance, they had a Easter egg race/hunt, then tag football, 3 on 3 basketball and human Foosball, which involved a giant, inflatable foosball court lined with ropes that had movable harnesses on them. Teams of 9 kids each strapped themselves in and went at it. In the meantime, I was doing concessions, making up frozen pizzas, cotton candy, hot pretzels and a load of other food & sodas. Each 7th grader had to bring in a frozen pizza and each 8th grader, some kind of baked good like cupcakes, cookies etc. We then sold the stuff for 50cents apiece or a dollar for a whole pizza. So they could eat a whole lot of junk food for a little amount of money. They needed to say sugared and caffeined up if they wanted to stay awake all night. It was fun, but I was more than happy to head home and crawl into bed at 4:30 this morning.

Angel #4 got home around 7am, slept a few hours, then headed off with a friend to spend the next 2 nights in Wisconsin Dells. The Dells is Wisconsin's biggest tourist site and is the home of America's biggest outdoor water park. Yep, a state that only has about 4 months of summer has the country's biggest water park. That's obviously closed right now, but the Dells is also full of hotels that have huge indoor water parks, and that's what she's doing. The hotel she's staying at has 4 indoor water parks, that should keep her busy for the next couple days. With all her activities, she's going to be running on fumes by the time she gets home Saturday night.

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