Fireworks and crazy people

I don’t usually venture out when I know there will be a lot of people.  I don’t do crowds.  I hate traffic.  I need SPACE.

This year though I figured Smushy was old enough to enjoy the fireworks.  I don’t want her to miss out on stuff just because her mother is a weenie.  We went to our local aquarium.  The flyer we got said “Bring your picnic baskets, cooler, chairs and blanket”.  So that’s exactly what we brought.  Except I used a big bag we use for swimming instead of a picnic basket because my name is not Dorothy and this isn’t Kansas.  Also, we are not in black and white. Also, no one told me there was going to be a million people there. We didn’t even have room to lay out our blanket. Our chairs were smashed together. It kinda sucked. We brought hotdogs and potato salad and fruit and chips and cookies.  Smushy ate the chips and I forgot about the cookies, so they didn’t get eaten.  So she basically had nothing to eat.  Awesome.

That pretty much sums up her mood for the day.

Smush seemed to do fine for the first hour and a half, but then she got bored, so we walked around and saw the dolphins and the eagle.  About 30 minutes before the fireworks she was DONE.  She kept saying “All done?  We go?”  It was the saddest thing ever. I knew once the fireworks started, she would be fine. But there was some screaming before that and it sucked.

Once they got going she loved it. Mr. Silly was holding her while I attempted to take some pics. I kept hearing her say “Wow! Fireworks!” It was pretty windy and you can see which direction the wind was coming from because my pics are a little wonky. I’m thinking maybe I had my shutter open a little too long. Maybe I’ll do better next year.

See? Wind. I finally gave up and took it off the tripod on with a faster shutter speed and snapped a few crappy pics.

Not great, but whatever. After I snapped a few, I stole Smushy from Mr. Silly. She was sitting on my lap saying “Wow! Fireworks raining!” That pretty much made it an awesome night. I think I spent way more time looking at her than watching the show myself.

Once the show was over, we packed it up and followed the throng of people back to the parking lot. We sat in the car, not moving, for about half an hour before someone finally let us out. Then it took us an hour to go 1 block. I only wish I were kidding. When we made it to the packed intersection where we needed to turn left, the car in front of us turned, but got stuck in the intersection. With a million other people. This lady came out with her camera, said something to the driver and took a picture of his license plate and car position. Apparently she was trying to get through the intersection (along with everyone else) and got mad that it was blocked. I’m sorry, but what a bitch. Everyone is in the same position. Everyone has been waiting for more than an hour. Everyone is stuck and tired and cranky. No need to act like an asshole about it. At that point we just turned around. I decided I would rather spend 2 hours driving around until we found another way home than the same amount of time sitting with a bunch of pricks.

We ended up following a few cars, hoping they’d lead us someplace useful. Then we had to get far enough away for the GPS to find us another way home. It apparently does not listen when I say “EXCLUDE! EXCLUDE, YOU PIECE OF SHIT!!!” Finally it was all, “Fine, you wanna go the long way? Then take this damn farm road and shut up!” So we did. Then the road did this weird curvy thing and we had to turn around and almost drove off a cliff that shouldn’t even have been there and I wish I were joking WE ALMOST DIED! Then we got home and passed out.

The end.