The circus that was the circus

I decided to try for Mother of the Year today and took 5 of the kids to the Shrine Circus. What a trip! 3.5 hours of hard back seats, the mechanical sound of "It's a Small World", playing 16,000 times in my ear from the kids behind me whose mother caved and paid 12 bucks for the singing flashlight they were hawking in the aisles. These same lovely children have a great future in music. Their rhythm was fantastic. I know this because not once did their feet take a break from swinging back and forth into the back of my seat. The circus was over and I was trying to make the fast break for the parking lot --- but we couldn't leave as quickly as I would have liked because first I had to pry everyone's feet off of the floor where someone had spilled their 5 dollar snowcones. I kid you not. I had to PULL to get Ryan's feet off the floor. So gross. I especially appreciated the part where when you get to the ticket office, the guy in the Shriners Fez behind the window tells me that all the General Admission tickets are sold out, so we have to buy reserved seating at 15 bucks a pop. I couldn't help but notice (as my head was bobbing around from the rhythmic thumping) that there were entire sections of General Admission that had absolutely NOBODY sitting in them. Obviously, we have different ideas of what "sold out" means.

All that being said - the kids loved it, but next year I will be content to stay home and be third runner-up. Or Miss Congeniality.