Accidental Swimming

Let me paint the scene... We are at my Uncles house.  It is a gorgeous house.  It is enormous, like 5,500 square feet.  It is the kind of house that you have a 100 people at, and no one feels cramped.  We attend a party there once a year.  It is a big event, all my cousins and their kids are there.  About 25 people.  We are definately representing the white trash side of the family.

I always stress out before this, because I am sure that my kids are going to do something horrible.  Break something really expensive, or just cause some sort of embarrassing calamity.  Granted, M and V are lovely hosts, so anything, no matter how horrible, would be handled very graciously.  But, still I worry.

We arrive.  My kids go tearing outside to play.  There is a pool and a hot tub outside and one of my cousins kids says to me, they won't go into the pool would they?  I respond, no, we talked about that, they wouldn't do that.  Famous last words.

I go into the kitchen for a cranberry margarita.  Very yummy, highly recommend them.  Hannah comes into the kitchen and insists that I need to go see Sam.  I go outside.  As I get closer to him, I notice that there are wet footsteps leading from the hot tub to where he is.  This is not good.  I hope that one of the four dogs has been for a swim.  That is not the case, Sam has "fallen" into the hot tub.  Actually he was testing the cover to see if he could stand on it... yeah, not so much.  He is soaked, head to toe. I do not have any clothes for him.

I go inside to ask my cousin who has a 10 year old.  The youngest child there other than mine.  She has nothing.  She graciously gets me a towel, goes outside with me and helps me get Sam situated.  She put Sam's clothes into the dryer for me.  I carry Sam inside.  He is embarrassed, crying and generally carring on.  I put him on a bench away from the general hubbub.  And try and figure out what to do.

It finally comes to me, I could put him in a sweat shirt and he could wear that like a dress until his clothes are dry.  My aunt is a tiny woman.  I never realized how tiny, until tonight. I ask her if we can borrow a sweat shirt from her.  She hooks me up with a pair of shorts and a sweat shirt.  The shorts, while a bit long in the rise, fit Sam fairly well and the sweatshirt rounded out the outfit.  The items were too long, but not too big around.  So, my aunt is basically the size of a six year old.  I told you she was tiny.

When Sam finally got his clothes back it was a big boost to his self esteem.  All is well that ends well.  My mother said, it was a good thing he didn't drown.  I agree, but isn't that a bit morbid?  Next time when I tell the kids not to go into the pool, I will not assume hot tub is implied.  I will spell it out.