Stepford Wives-in-Training

During IOGT camp every summer, we all go to Wild Mountain (a nearby waterpark) on Thursday. The past few years, I’ve had a few girls recognize me from TV—and they’ve all been girls—but one instance this year was just plain weird.

I was at the top of a slide with my uncle and my niece, the latter of whom was about to ride down in my lap. Had it been the former, I might have suffocated halfway down due to an inability to expand my chest and have my lungs take in oxygen (i.e., he’s a few pounds heavier than my niece). There were three girls sitting there who let people know when they could head down the slide so as to limit collisions. Back in the good ol’ days, us kids made a point to slow down and watch our friends speed past us around the corners, but alas, the good ol’ days are far gone. *sigh* Anyway, before sitting down in our inner tube, one girl spoke up: “I don’t mean to sound unprofessional, but…”

It’s been three years since Beauty and the Geek aired on television—that’s the first time someone’s been concerned about sounding “unprofessional” and she works as a lifeguard at a waterpark. What is the world coming to… I told her that, yes, I was on Beauty and the Geek, at which point all three girls started getting really excited. My uncle piped up, “I can’t believe they remember that.”

All three of them at the same time: “We’re teenagers!”

So now you’ve been warned. If you’re ever mean to me and I threaten to have the teenage girls hunt you down and kill you, stay away from the water. There might be more than three of them and if they gang up on you, they might be even heavier than my uncle.