Grumpy Summer Vacation, Day 4

This morning we grabbed a table outside to have breakfast. When the twins failed to materialize from the buffet room, I went searching for them. To my horror they'd set-up camp by the hot water spigot, giving free (and unsolicited) lessons to passersby on how to make hot chocolate while blocking the coffee urn (which is what most people were looking for). I dragged them off, restoring access to caffeine.

After breakfast we went back to Sea World, for day 2 of our pass. I produced our 5 tickets, and the wrinkled crone at the gate chewed me out because we have to give fingerprints that match each ticket, and since I hadn’t written each person’s name on the appropriate tickets “this will take forever to sort out, and you’re already holding up the line”.

Fortunately, we all got through on the first try, in spite of the fact that Mrs. Grumpy and I got through on child tickets and Frank and Marie used adult ones. So either we all have the same fingerprints or Sea World’s fingerprint-ID security system isn’t nearly as good as they think it is.

I spent the day hobbling around the park, due to Mrs. Grumpy stomping on my foot for trying to help a lady. We'd been going into the Shamu show, and some woman, who erroneously thought I looked helpful, came over and asked me if there was a difference between the 8:00 pm. and 10:00 pm "Shamu Rocks!" shows. I told her the 10:00 show was for adults only, and was called "Shamu Fucks!" That’s when my foot began hurting.

Why is it that my kids are too chicken shit to sit in the splash zones by themselves? And when I want to sit there, how come that’s suddenly the only time all day they won’t?

My Dad is always fun at these places, because he firmly feels you should be out of there before noon so he can go take a nap. When I was a kid, and stupid/naive/both, I believed him that a major amusement park would never be open past noon. Around 11:45 a.m. he’d say “Okay, that was the whole park, let's go somewhere for lunch and a nap". And then I'd go home and tell my friends about the 3 rides I'd been on, and they told me about the 45 they were on and the fireworks show at night, and I'd stupidly accept my father's explanation that they must have gone to a different park by the same name. It wasn't until I took my own kids to Disneyland that I realized the rides ran into the afternoon and night.

But my Dad has a truly remarkable talent. He can get into anything, regardless of what’s required to do so. He has the amazing ability, without saying a word, to look like he knows what he's doing and is where he's supposed to be. One year, on a Hawaiian vacation, we were driving around looking for a place to have lunch. He noticed a cruise ship in the harbor, parked in a lot near it, and led our family right past the ship’s guarded gangway and to the buffet. The security officer, who was checking everything that moved for a ship's ID, waved us through when my dad smiled and nodded to him. We ate there, and then strolled off and drove back to our hotel for his nap. On another trip he got us into a $25 per person luau with the same ability.

It was late afternoon at Seaworld and there was a Junior Achievement group having a private function at a pavilion, with a dinner buffet. There was a guard at the door, asking to see event tickets as people went it.

Mrs. Grumpy, my Mom, and I were walking past it, and suddenly noticed my Dad was inside, eating dinner and sitting with a group of parents. We didn’t know he’d even returned from his nap yet. As soon as we saw him we decided to try and join him, but were immediately stopped by the guard, who asked for our event tickets and photo ID's. My Dad stood inside laughing at us, then wandered over and said to the guard "It's okay, Bill, they're with me." The guard immediately smiled and let us through, so we had dinner with Junior Achievement.

How come the men’s room urinal has a sign above it explaining (in both English and Spanish) the dangers of drinking alcohol if you're pregnant?

While waiting in line (again) the twins began hitting each other, just as I noticed this sign nearby:



When I asked the employee standing there I was told that I couldn’t trade my kids in for another set. Is that false advertising or what?

On the way out we stopped to see if anyone had turned in Craig’s lost baseball cap. Another Mr. Asshole was in there, arguing with the manager on duty. He wanted his money back on the grounds that, after spending a full day at Sea World, he’d decided there weren't enough rides to make him happy.

Because we’re going on a cruise tomorrow, we had to do a bunch of laundry tonight. So Mrs. Grumpy and I took turns in the Residence Inn laundry room.

I gotta tell you, these other Residence Inn travelers are laundromatically aggressive psychopaths (or maybe they're still angry over not getting coffee this morning). If you aren't there they'll actually pull your wet clothes out of a machine, toss them on the floor, and reset the machine with their own load.

So I got a book and a shotgun and set up camp to protect, wash, and dry. We had a lot of laundry, and after a while other people using the room began to assume I worked there. They asked me for change, directions to the zoo, and how to get out coffee stains (I suggested a mixture of bleach and Bisquick, and if it ruined your shirt, you should have known better anyway).