This afternoon, I swished my hand inside the Adventure Bowl and prayed I'd get a goody. Something that would be adventurous and be accomplished while lying down would be pretty sweet!I reached in and it said, "Today you are going skim boarding." I'm not going to lie, I didn't want to do it. But Rule #1 of Adventure Bowl is you can't say "no." Oh, yeah, there are rules, people!
If you don't know what skim boarding is, at first glance, it looks like surfing for losers. You take the skim board which is 1/3 the size of a surf board and very thin, and hurl it into the end of a wave like it was a Frisbee. Then as the board is moving, you jump on and ride the last bit of the wave. You go really fast and really far and it can make you feel SUPER TOUGH.
Unless of course, you have not skim boarded in two years and in that time you have gained an EXTRA ASS and as you jump on your skim board, YOU SINK REALLY FAST. In front of people. On a crowded beach. Which happened to me, on this adventure.
Right after it happened, this little six year old goes whizzing by me, showing me how it's done. I SWEAR HE WAS METAPHORICALLY GIVING ME THE FINGER. Since drowning a six year old to make myself feel better was out of the question (I could never run fast enough to my car after, the sand slows you down), I instead went over to the surf shop to rent another skim board.
A big girl's skim board (eye roll).
"How much do you weigh?" said the kid behind the counter.
"I don't know." (Oh, I know! I know very, very well.)
"Well, what would you guess?"
"Um... is there a board for 'a lot,' as in 'I weigh a lot.'"
"No. There are people behind you. Just give me a ballpark."
"Okay, I weigh what you weigh (small voice) plus, like ten pounds more."
"There's no way you weigh what I weigh. (LOUD VOICE) Hey, Tyler, this lady is trying to say she weighs what I weigh."
"Hey, can you pipe down just a little!"
"Sorry, M'am."
UH!!!! What???? Did he just call me "M'am." He did. He recklessly M'am-ed me. A young lady like me.
Yes, I got another board. A hefty girl's board. And I skimmed and it felt awesome. But what was crazy was that it wasn't the skim boarding that made my day. It was realizing that doing this adventure gave me the feeling of perseverance, even in the face of embarrassment.
For me, it would have been so easy to pack up and go home. But I don't want to pack up and go home. I want to do things. Things that defy my abilities. Things that test me and make me come out a winner. So I took the strength I got from doing the last adventure and I brought it with me today. It was like a little voice, "You are stronger now... you can do this... keep your promise to yourself."
And I did. And now the next time I want to give up, I'll remember trudging back down to the beach with my new board and riding it kind of bumpily but mostly awesomely and victoriously.
In your face, onlookers!
This blog is dedicated to fearless six year-olds everywhere.
