Let's talk about awesome, shall we? And is anybody more awesome than me, as patriarch of my small but loyal clan? Nay, no one is. And how, you ask, do I display my awesomeness?
I take my family to a haunted corn maze.
Okay, it's not technically haunted, or at least, it wasn't haunted while we were there. It's only haunted after 7 PM, and we were there at about 1:30. We'd driven down to Salt Lake City on our thrice-annual trip to purchase six hundred pounds of meat and the world's largest box of Goldfish crackers at Costco, and while we were there, we decided to take a mini-vacation to a haunted cornfield located North of Salt Lake City. And not just that: there was a corn maze and a hay ride! Yee-haw!
I knew the day was going to be charmed when we found a parking space right in front of the entrance, despite the fact that there were hundreds of people there. Cool!
Okay, I'll admit that the circa-1960's helicopter giving rides made me afraid, and I may have used Angela's motion sickness as an excuse to skip out on crashing to my death in a fiery ball of fiery death, but other than that, the whole thing was just good, wholeseome fun.
The corn maze had four entrances, and spanned about 10 acres, which is a really good size for a corn maze. And it had a big long list of rules, things like "no running" and "no going off the path" and "no swearing" and all sorts of other rules that are designed to make the whole thing less fun.
If Angela hadn't been watching me, I'd have violated those rules like they were going out of style.
I grabbed a map and, all together, we forged off into the corn maze. It took about six seconds to remind me of why I never take my family anywhere.
"Hey, dad," one of them said. "How come you have the map? You don't even know right from left."
"I'm okay," I insisted. "We just turn right up here."
So we wandered around a little while, and the heckling got worse and worse from behind me.
"This is like watching a mule with a spinning wheel," one of them guffawed. "Nobody knows how he got it, and danged if he knows how to use it!"
"Remember the time he drove all around town to go to a Chinese restaurant next to our hotel?" Victoria asked. "Think this is like that?"
I swear, I was looking for a tractor to lead them under!
About six hours later, we finally came back out of the maze, their taunts and jeers notwithstanding. And I was never, ever, lost! There was just a lot of maze to go look at.
Just as we were getting ready to go back into the maze, Angela's feet started to hurt too much to go on. But there was still one more maze to go! And you know what they say: once you've started a corn maze, you've got to, uh, finish it.
So anyways, me and the bobbsey twins go to the last maze. And this one has something special about it: six million bees. And thankfully, no Angela to make me follow all the rules. Yar! Let's swear and run and swear and stray off the path and swear!
And let's also avoid the six million bees, okay?
When we get into the maze, the heckling starts again: "hey, dad, how do you know where we are without a GPS?"
It's horrible, so I do the only thing a dad really can: I prank them.
Victoria, being a pre-teen know-it-all, is walking about ten feet ahead of us and running her mouth about how lost we are, so I grab William and we just stop. I hear her motor-mouth still blabbing as she goes ahead, and then suddenly, it all goes silent.
"Dad?" I hear from somewhere up ahead. "Dad? William? Where are you guys? Dad?"
Then there's little feet running (breaking a rule!) and she comes tearing around the corner, tears almost in her eyes. "You really scared me!"
Good times. We forge on ahead, and it's William's turn to start up.
"That would never work on me," he says. "You'd never get me with that trick. I'm too smart for it. Too clever. I'm like a ninja! You can't fool me with such things. I have...oonagi!"
That goes on, for like five minutes, so I grab Victoria and we step aside. And sure enough, he almost immediatley turns around. "I knew you'd do that! Give it up, old man. I'm too much for you! Too clever! You're finished! Done! A has-been! A never-was!"
He's keeping up this prattle as we walk, and I slow down, ever so slightly, so he and his sister both get up ahead of me. And they take a turn up ahead, like they've been doing, and I just keep going straight (remember, I have the map).
Victoria, to her credit, sees me do it and circles around to come back to me. Mr. Ninja Never Surprised, though, is so caught up in his victory rhapsody that he keeps going, until he realizes he's alone.
"Ha, ha." He says as he backtracks. "You guys know that trick won't work on me. You're just waiting right back..."
Silence.
"Dad?" Now there's a note of concern. "Very funny. Come out, dad. Dad? Dad? Daaaaad!" Now he's running around, wailing, full of concern and very worried that he's alone in the corn maze.
Victoria then runs off, I'm not sure why, and I hear this conversation and realize that she's very, very evil.
"Vic!" He gasps gratfully. "Where's dad?"
"I don't know," she says. "I haven't seen him!"
"DAAAAAAAAAAAD!" he yells. "WHERE ARE YOU?!?!?!?"
And at that point I bust out laughing, and he finds me, and then proceeds to punch me with his little fists angrily, tears in his eyes.
But I didn't have to hear any more of that "I'm so ninja" crap.
As we made our way out, it's possible that I got lost, and swore, and then cut through a bunch of the part of the corn field that you're not supposed to go through, but I'd never admit that.
Because pranks are fun, Victoria decided to go prank her mother, who was sitting on a bench listening to music. Vic snuck up behind her, and then jumped on her, but her mother never even flinched.
"How did you do that?" Vic asked.
"I saw your shadow," Angela responded.
Now that, my friends, is some mad ninja skillz. We were all in awe. But I still stepped on the heel of her shoe, because I have mad prank skillz.
Once the maze fun was done, we headed over to the hayride. Is it really a hayride without hay? Before we started, one dude yelled out the rules, but nobody but me could hear it.
"What did he say?" Angela yells as the tractor starts rolling off into the pumpkin patch.
"He said that tops are not allowed in the pumpkin patch," I said. "And that you should treat me better. Really, that's what he said!"
Angela just rolled her eyes at me, but the offended woman next to her was hilarious. Listen, lady, I been married to her for twenty years - if she can't handle that, well, it's time to just hang it all up.
Once you get out to the pumpkin patch, a bunch of slackjawed yokels gunning for tips stand around with cutters and try to get you to slip them a buck before they cut the pumpkin off the vine, like skycaps at the airport. None of that for me - I pulled out my keys and sawed the pumpkins off WITH MY BARE HANDS!
It was like I was Arnold Swartzenegger and Edward Scissorhands all rolled into one, without the angst or the mistresses. Or the muscles. Or the money.
(Or the looks, I'm told).
Plus, I got pumpkin barbs all in my hands, but I couldn't admit that because I'd already been savagely abused in the whole maze thing, but that hurt for like three days.
We returned, our pumpkins held proudly aloft (well, not really, but you get the imagery), and then when the tractor returned to the parking lot it was about ten feet from the van, which just underlined my awesome awesomeness.
So yes, I am the greatest father in the history of fatherhood!
(Author's note: it's possible that the entire idea of the pumpkin patch, corn maze, and hayride was from Angela, who found out about it and arranged the whole thing, and packed for us. But it is true that I drove, and I was also instrumental in waking up, and I did make the hotel reservations. And it's definintely true that I wrote this, so I'm just going to take full credit for it.)
((Plus, for the record, they're all weenies for being so difficult in the corn maze, and I should have ditched them, only I really was lost most of the time and just staring at the map and hoping that it looked like I knew where I was going.))
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