Friday, February 1, 2008

Gotta have my chapstick


On the local forum I moderate online a question was brought up yesterday asking what weird habits we had. It was quite funny reading some of the responses people posted - from how they ate their food (in certain orders, by colors, in number fashion) to how they organized their home and office space. Makes you realize everyone is kooky in their own right! LOL

But this reminded me of a particular instance about 7 years ago when my twin daughters were around the age of 13 and wanted to go see teen queen Brittany Spears in concert. (She was actually really cute back then!) She was coming to our civic center here in town and the Civic Center was kind enough to set up a Parent Room at no charge for all of us parents to hang out during the concert if we didn't want to actually attend the concert with our children. For the sake of money, no I didn't want to attend the concert - I already was putting out a bunch of money for 2 tickets; I didn't want to buy another one for me when I didn't care for her music anyway so this Parent room was a terrific idea!

My daughters were so excited! My plans were to deposit them where they needed to go, find out where the Parent Room was and when the crowds thinned out a little bit I was going to head back out to my car to get my scrapbooking tote and purse, come back inside the parent room and work on my scrapbook for the next 3 hours while they enjoyed the concert....or so that's what I thought! Well, I was wrong!

Once I got up to the Parent Room (with only my cell phone in hand) I was informed that I could not leave the building until the concert was over. If I left the building I was not allowed to re-enter the building. The problem with that was the kids whose parents were in the Parent Room were wearing a special wristband and they were not going to be allowed to leave the building without their parent. These kids were going to be brought to the Parent Room AFTER the concert was over. It's not like we had matching wristbands or anything...so if I left the building I had no idea what they would do with my girls.

I was stuck! With only my cell phone....no scrapbooking supplies, no purse....wait a minute, no purse? If no purse, that means, NO CHAPSTICK!!!!!! The realization and horror of it all began to sink in. I HAVE TO HAVE MY CHAPSTICK! I began to pace like a caged animal. These people just didn't understand. I can't be in this building for 3 hours without chapstick!! Are they crazy??!! I mean, seriously I am the lady that has tubes of chapstick all over the house. I have it hanging on my bedpost for crying out loud so I don't have to look for it in the middle of the night when I wake up with dry lips!

I went into the bathroom and called my mother and told her the dire situation I was in. She would understand! She could fix it! She listened to my tale of woe and suggested driving all the way downtown to me (30 min drive) and bringing me some chapstick....she could come to the door and throw it to me. (If I didn't feel so bad for her having to get out and drive an hour round trip I probably would have taken her up on her offer! She's such a sweetie!!) But I told her "No, let me get off of here and calm myself down and just pray about this. I am getting myself all worked up and angry. I just need to make the best of this."

That's exactly what I did. I hung up the phone and I prayed. I prayed for God to give me something to occupy my time because at that time of my life I was EXTREMELY introverted and detested making small-talk with people....hence the reason for bringing my scrapbooking supplies (to keep me busy and occupied so people would leave me alone!) I prayed that He would help me with my crazy "dry lips" problem. I prayed my daughters would have a great time inside at the concert despite their neurotic mother's breakdown in the next room! LOL

About 30 minutes later I was sitting at a table just people watching and one of the Civic center employees walked into the room and announced that they had set up a mini-conference next door for anyone who was interested. They had arranged for a child psychologist to come speak and have a question & answer session on raising teenagers. Hmmm, this might be interesting I thought. So I walked over there. Upon entering the room, I was given a goodie bag. Inside the goodie bag was a TUBE OF CHAPSTICK!!! Awwwww, my God is good!!

By the way, this conference was FANTASTIC too! I didn't have enough notepaper to write on! I didn't want the evening to end! God is good all the time!

1 comment:

Marshamlow said...

What a great story glad your prayers were answered.