 I've led a pretty uneventful life, so, to me, "extreme" isn't
necessarily life-threatening or debilitating. "Extreme" may simply
mean something I'd never encountered before, which isn't hard to
come by, on account of my uneventful life.Last weekend our town
was doing a Springfest. It included the requisite balloon-blowing
clowns and face painting, but most importantly, for our attendance,
was the free food. I will go out of my way to attend a function that
means I don't have to cook. So, of course, as soon as I found out
about it, I put it at the top of my "Things to Do" list.
The day was breezy and warm, just the perfect day for a town
picnic. Many people showed up for the festivities. There were chairs
and tables set among the trees, with colorful plastic tablecloths
blowing gently in the breeze. There were tents for the different
activities and refreshments. There was even a DJ playing "old people
music" as my son called it. I guess it's a sign of my age that I
enjoyed it.
Because so many people came, the lines for the activities were
long. My husband stood in line for the food, and I stood in line
with the kids to get "identification packages" made for each one.
The local police were running that activity. My children only stood
there with me because there was a basket full of candy to choose
from when they were done.
It wasn't long before the breeze turned into wind and the
tablecloths needed to be held down with rocks, balloons started
flying out of the clown's hands, and the tents made funny popping
noises as they flapped up and down.
I watched a tiny boy, about knee-high to a grasshopper, leaning
into the wind and concentrating hard so he would not fall down.
Still we stood in line. My husband made it to the front of the
food line first and fixed us all a plate of hamburger or hot dog,
chips, a drink, and a brownie. If I had known they had brownies, the
identification packages would have had to wait.
I no sooner arrived at the picnic table than the wind picked up
another couple of notches, and it started to pour cats and dogs. We
ran to one of the smaller tents as I desperately tried to hang on to
my food. The wind was now blowing so hard that we had to hold down
the tent. I was holding my drink in one hand and my plate of food in
the other, trying to capture a potato chip or two with my mouth
before they all flew off my plate.
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 Not to fear, one huge blast of wind dumped the contents of the
plate onto my chest. No need to worry about those chips any longer.
They were whirling away in tornado-force winds along with the
multicolored tablecloths and folding chairs. My 11-year-old son was
jumping up and down and cheering like he was at the World Series, my
daughter plastered herself to my back trying to stay warm, and I was
gamely trying to trap my hamburger and brownie on my chest, firmly
resolved that should one have to go, I was going to save the brownie
first.
In order to use both hands for this feat, I placed my full drink
on my now empty plate and put them down on a table. Bad move. The
wind picked up the plate and promptly tossed the contents of my cup
into the face of my 6-year-old. He was not happy ... but I had my
hamburger and brownie!
I looked back at my husband. He was hanging on to two sides of
the tent, holding his cup with his teeth and doing his best to
shelter his family from the storm. What a picture he made! He looked
like he was flying through a hurricane attached to a hang glider. My
very own Indiana Jones. What a man!
At some point during the maelstrom, we decided to make a run for
our nice, dry car. At the very least, the rain would rinse the Coke
off my child's face.
While my husband recruited some other tent-holders, my children
and I took off for the car, only to find out that all the windows
were open. So much for a nice, dry car. My hamburger was now
unrecognizable and my brownie was nothing more than a chocolate
sponge.
When my husband finally showed up, he wiped his face with his
soggy shirt and exclaimed, "It's amazing what we'll go through just
so we don't have to cook!"
[By LAURA SNYDER]
You can reach the writer at
lsnyder@lauraonlife.com
Or visit www.lauraonlife.com
for more columns and info about her books.
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