Drawing attention inconspicuously.

Pulling up to the border crossing I begin to fell anxious. Not really a surprise as in most situations I tend to exhibit a very Type A personality. I take this time to explain to the children that we are about to go through a very important crossway and that I will be turning off their movie so daddy can speak with the officer. I go on to explain that I will not tolerate any misbehavior from this point on.

It’s hot out. Last year the van decided it would let us know when and if it wanted to provide us we heat and now it would seem to be the same for air conditioning. The line up is not long and I am silently excited for my first official drive across the border but first I am anxious. We roll the windows down to get that ocean breeze going through the vehicle. The kids are quietly observing the scene as I have made it into a bigger deal than it is and they seem to note my fears. I have nothing to hide mind you, I just tend to act weird when I need to be cool.

All at once my husband turns to me and says “what is that” and he brushes the side of his leg two times. Half way through the second swipe it becomes terrifyingly obvious that “it” is a wasp. A short version of the back storey here is that my husband hates all stinging bugs and on most occasions would throw his grandmother in front of a bus to avoid one. I am not exaggerating. He literally jumped out of a moving truck to leave me buckled in the passenger seat with a bee. Instantaneous chaos in sues and milliseconds become minutes. Freeing the beast from his leg does not provide any relief and with a high pitch man squeal he continues to pummel the beast with his sneaker into the rubber floor mat.

Halfway through his triad when I am assured that he is out of harms way I look up in horror to see the Suburban ahead of us backing up! Milliseconds later I realize my husbands weapon of choice is his pedal foot and we are actually rolling forward. I say “stop”…”stop”…then yell ”stop, stop, stop” and I have a remarkable amount of time to assess that he is not grasping the immediate danger and I Scream “Break, hit the BREAK”. AND he does, just 2 centimeters before running into our second unsuspecting victim. When all is done we laugh, looking to our side I notice the man in the red truck laughing too. We carefully see if we have peaked the curiosity of any of the guards with our event. And everything is back to normal.

My son begins to cry in the back seat. Saying “ your yelling hurt my heart”. And “ be quiet or daddy will be arrested.” He is seriously confused and upset and the more I laugh the angrier he gets with me.  It is our turn. I shut off the videos and we serve our passports with shit eating grins. Having just commited a murder (albeit of a bug) we look guilty as sin. My son who is totally traumatized continues to weep as my three year old mimicks his gasps. Just another day in the life. Who knew when they said "join the circus" that they just mean have kids.