Watching You Watching Me

We took the kids to a water park today. It turned out to be the best place to spend a 100 degree day. We all had a great time.

Part of the fun for me--as is always the case when I go to any amusement park-- was the people watching. Bathing suits only add to the fun.

I remember going to Hershey a few months after I had my little one. We left the baby at home with her grandparents so that we could make the trip something special for the new big brother. I was still wearing maternity pants and just felt all loose and gross and doughy. Because the baby wasn't with me, I was worried that nobody would know why I was all squishy.

[Remember, we've already established that I'm crazy and think people are actually paying attention to me and the things I do.]

To my post-partum delight, at Hershey my not-quite-fighting weight still qualified me for "lookin' good!" status.

There's not a lot of middle ground at amusement parks from what I've observed. Generally, people seem to fall into one of two camps-- either they are a Jack Spratt-type or they look more like his wife.

But it's not the relative sizes that are interesting. It's the pairings. And the ink. And the piercings. And the clothing choices. And the children (or are they siblings?). There are so many stories going on. As I wait on line I try to figure them all out. Sometimes I just try to take it all in and enjoy the show.

And, like I said before, throwing bathing suits into the mix takes the whole thing to another level.

We left all our dry stuff in a locker near the entrance to the park, which meant we spent the whole day in our suits. Evidently, I do not have the self-esteem that some park-goers have: I wore a simple one-piece with a rash guard over it so as not to actually catch on fire.

Because everyone is in a bathing suit you get used to being in one pretty quickly. We even ate our lunch--inside, at a table-- in our wet bathing suits. As we were leaving the restaurant, a large table near the door burst into laughter. The crazy me assumed for a second that they were laughing at me. Wait, that can't be, I reassured myself, because I'm practically wearing a burka and, besides, all the parts that are showing are my best parts.

Not so fast Private Johnson.

Turns out my inventory of parts was incomplete. A minute later my husband came out and informed me that my bathing suit had split up the back. ACK!

All the SPF and rash guards in the world couldn't save me from the color red I turned. I can only hope that it happened at lunch and not earlier (as in before I had climbed into inner tubes and onto water slides). Fingers crossed that all phones and cameras were safely tucked away in lockers.

Sigh. I'm going to be wincing about this for months.

Of course this only feeds the crazy. You're not paranoid if it turns out people actually are talking about you.