Honeymoon Surprise

So there we were, barely twenty, newlywed, poor, and sweating it out at a 'tent show' Renaissance Faire in Hollywood, Florida.

We'd been sent down there by my dad to run the little booth and make him some money while we earned a tiny living and attempted a honeymoon as well. He didn't make much money, we had to live off of our wedding gift money, and it all ended badly. But we did have some fun. We made some friends, as well as a few enemies. We had adventures and watched a couple of awful movies when there was nothing else to do. We went to Disney world for a couple of days, barbecued steak on the beach, and discovered Cuban food.

We also got a little surprise. Not, surprisingly enough, a kid. That discovery would come merely a few short months later, but this is not that story.

You see, a 'tent show' is not an established Renaissance Faire like King Richard's Faire or the Michigan Renaissance Festival. Those fine venues, both of which our family has sold at in times past, have permanent structures on land that they either own or lease. A tent show rents some land- a park in this case- and has their crafters, food vendors, performers, etc, set up tents, portable staging equipment, easily broken-down seating, you name it. It is somewhat like a freakish old time circus, with badly painted Olde English lettering on beer signs instead of bright red and yellow flashing lights. These shows generally, but not always, have inferior performers and craftspeople to the more established shows. My dad was not one of the inferior crafters, just an opportunist.

One of the problems with a tent show is the inherent temporariness of it all. Our booth was a simple setup of two tables, covered in cloth, rigged with an incredible X frame that held necklace bars and little shelves. Beside us, to our left, was a candle shop, and one more beside them, on the corner of that little pathway, was a theme clothing shop. Turn the corner in that jerry-rigged setup, and you would have found yourself at the small gaming alley. All of the typical barker carnival games are therem but in 'Ren Faire' mode- beanbag toss, Jacob's ladder, duck hunt, Chinese throwing stars. Wait, did I just say Chinese throwing stars? Why, yes, I believe I did. here's where this story gets better.

Michael and I were standing around one fine afternoon, wishing more people would buy stuff. The Miami area is not known for its absorption with culture, fantasy, or medeval jewelry. No, they tend to be more obsessed with their bodies, health drinks, and the beach. Frighteningly over-muscled men strutted about the little park with their beer cups and their equally muscled girlfriends. Doddering old people wandered around mumbling, some not even aware that a function was going on. the day was nearly over, and our take had been pathetic- more so than usual. We were just contemplating the grim prospect of having to cook a camp supper again, after a long day, when Michael suddenly let out a tiny gasp and kind of stood up straighter.

"What?" I asked, thinking that he had been stung by a bee, or possibly had a particularly revolutionary thought strike him. He merely looked at me, slightly wild-eyed, and vaguely motioned behind him.

"I... think something bit me," he stammered.

I ducked under the tent supports to look at his back, and almost didn't see it. Barely glancing at his back, I went to lift his shirt up, but saw instead our neighbor (from the candle place- nice people, by the way-) staring at Micheal in horror.
A Chinese star stuck out of his back, about half an inch from his spine. It must have been a wild throw from the rickety wooden target board twenty feet away. As I panicked and (stupidly) went to touch his back, it simply fell out onto the ground. Around this time, Michael realized that it was not simply a bug bite. He felt no pain, just kind of a pinch and a little pressure, which is why he didn't know what had happened to him. I think that possibly because it went into his skin so close to his spine was the reason that he felt no pain. A tiny cut in his muslin shirt was the only outside evidence of his near brush with medical mayhem and possible handicap.

Now I did lift up his shirt, still unable to believe what I had seen. A little cut was there on his back, about half an inch long. It barely bled, just kind of reddened a little, but it was so very close to the spine that it made my own spine curl with fear.

Michael marched the sharp star over to the throwing booth and presented it to them, Exhibit A. He then turned around, pointed to the fresh slit in his shirt, and explained what had happened to him.

"Oh, really?" Came the response, "We had a drunk guy here few minutes ago. He had some prett-ty wild throws, man. You musta got one of them. Haha."

Michael calmly pointed out that the wild throw coud have paralyzed him. More stoned laughter, along with an offer for Mike to keep the star 'as a souvenir'. That's about as far as he was going to get. I think the guys tightened up the gaps between their rickety wooden boards and the ones beside them, but I really can't remember. We did keep the throwing star, but have lost track of it over the years. No more mishaps really came about from there, unless you count the star that stuck into the canvas of our beautiful period tent (which is up for sale, by the way!). That endangered no one, so it didn't seem nearly as frightening.

The wound, which was clean, healed up with no problems, and there is barely even the hint of a scar there now. Some of the people who have heard this story raise an eyebrow in disbelief, some laugh, some are horrified. I am a tiny bit of all three when I think back to it. No one else that I know got a swiftly moving sharp metal star stuck in their body on their honeymoon.

And if there are any of ya, let me know, maybe we'll start a club!

Payback

I have a theory.
I know that not every woman is going to be rational when picking a tiny LEGO brick out of her foot, but bear with me here...

LEGO: Causing foot pain to millions of parents worldwide.

Our kids are just payback. Remember the times you dragged out all of your mom's steel pots and banged away for hours? Now your own kids have a heavy wooden spoon and have figured out that the stair railing has unique harmonics. It's payback time.

When I was a kid, we didn't have a lot of toys, but we made good use of what we had. There was this toy in our house- I've never seen anything quite like it- that made a glorious noise. It was about ten inches long, had three wheels set into the peach plastic body, and an ugly animal sticker below the handle. The wheels- hideous primary colored melamine- would make a tinkly sound when spun gently. Spin faster, and the pitch rose. Spin all three at once, and you have your own little orchestra going on!
We would spin that thing for hours, and I distinctly remember my mom's voice, cracking from the pressure, yelling upstairs: "Enough!!"
Sorry, mom.

But now, you see, I have this wonderful mother-in-law. And she loves to gives my kids presents. For Christmas a few years back, she found these little kid keyboards. You know the kind- electric, with various beats and loops and 'demos'. When you turn this particular kind of keyboard on, it defaults to LOUD, running the scales a few times, before making a weird 'duhn.' sound.

She bought three.Children's Electric Keyboards: "No, sorry honey, we're out of batteries..."

Yup, one for each kid.

Payback.

Tinkertoys: Besides the undeniable quality of getting lost in the house,
they can also make good weapons.
I have fond memories of being smacked
in the head with a setup much like this.

For every Tinkertoy my mom stepped on, I have a LEGO wedged between my toes.

For every piece of crud I dropped downstairs through the post-and-beam assembly of our house, I find a piece of string tied to a doorknob.

For every marble out of our Chinese Checkers game that went rolling down the hall, I have... a marble out of our own Chinese Checkers game that winds up in my garbage disposal.

Marbles: Not sounding so good in the garbage disposal.

Looking through my children's toys yesterday, I realized just how many noise toys that we've received from parents. People who have lived this life of shattered concentration, staccato noise, and random toybox outbursts in the middle of the night!

I used to think it was treachery, now I see it for what it is.
They, too have put up with us, they are no stranger to finding the screwdriver and removing all of the batteries from a hiccuping speaker system. They, too, have limped and hobbled on bruised feet after stepping on tiny sharp-edged blocks and game components.

It's just payback time.

Wait until my kids grow up, I bet they have some nice noisemakers by then...