May21

Nothing surpasses the beauty and elegance of a bad idea. – Craig Bruce

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it seemed like such a good idea at the time.

brilliant, in fact.

we were teenagers, with time to kill, and we had a half day of school.

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i invited my friends over for an afternoon of watching our favorite soap opera, all my children.

all sorts of crazy fun was going on with luke and laura and the people of pine valley

and we were going to watch it in style.

my friends were happy to come along for the ride.

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this is how i imagined us watching the show that afternoon….

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reality was a bit different however.

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we took a fan outside,

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wheeled the old tv out on a cart,

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plugged everything in with a giant extension cord,

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got the lounge chairs and drinks in place on the patio,

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put on the sunglass and the sunscreen,

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whipped up a huge buffet of all of the mini frozen pizzas in the house,

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and then.

my mom came home.

and shut down the whole operation.

something about feeding the whole neighborhood

and moving the entire living room to the patio.

and trashing the kitchen.

and as we cleaned up and put everything back,

we made plans to do it the next week at my friend’s house.

it was kind of like a teenage version of ‘cat in the hat’.

except my mom came home in the middle of it.

—

Happy people plan actions, they don’t plan results.
 Dennis Wholey

 

 

 

75 responses »

    • i was different, as i was of the adventurous mindset and tried to never lose that, cg, though i did understand her a bit better when i was a parent myself. )

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  8. Loved this. Lol. But weren’t Luke and Laura General Hospital?
    You sound just like me! My mother never thought my great ideas were as great as I did and I guess it’s all how you look at it. I can just see her seeing the mess in the kitchen (probably) and following that orange cord out to you all. Too funny But makes a great story NOW.

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    • thank keri, and you are exactly right, we were addicted to the abc family of soaps and both of these shows were tops in our books. thanks for seeing my idea as a great one, obviously not everyone agreed )

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  10. HaHa! This reminds me of when I decide to do the pizza challenge at New York Style pizza with my 15 year old son, a 40 inch pizza with three meat topping and plenty of cheese and had an hr. to chuck it down. I am 5’5 weight 162 pounds and doesn’t eat that much and my son 5’6 he weight about 130 pounds and eats a lot but that day I only ate breakfast and drink all day until 7 pm thinking we could tackle it and walk out with the 100 dollar prize…lol but only to lose 50 dollars plus tax and gain two pounds and putting more fat on to my stomach and being constipated. ugh! Never try that again until this day I look at pizza in a different way. What a experience and a lesson learned! 😦 🙂 ?

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  11. My one and only soap didn’t come until working world days, ‘Another World.’ Went into the office immediately afterward. I was hooked for a couple of years straight. Watched it indoors, In my living room. Alone.

    But, Beth, in high school, I sure loved those mini frozen pizzas! I think your plan was brilliant in conception. If your mom had been a soap fan, bingo! She might have joined you.

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    • thanks for the support, mark, it’s so funny how all the teens were hooked on soaps and i agree about the fabulous mini pizzas, and my mom just did not understand my sense of adventure and spontaneous event planning. )

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      • It’s funny, but I think it something about our time where we wanted to plug the TV in and watch it out on the patio. I had a black and white portable set on a wheelie stand, but my parents wouldn’t let me take it outside, either. Something about “being too loud and bothering the neighbors.” Geez. I never thought of that …

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  12. 1. What a beautiful plan. Right down to the pizzas.

    2. If my kids did this? I could easily be bribed with a 30% pizza dad tax. Easily.

    3. My friends and I skipped school on NFL draft day, before it was prime time. We’d make egg sandwiches and predict the picks. My dad found out after year one. The next year? He stayed home with us.

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  16. So funny, Beth! Definitely you needed Thing 1 and Thing 2 to clean up your messes! Oh, how it was such a shame that she came home! Shoot! Perfect quote about the beauty and the elegance!

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  19. I’d wager that the planning and preparations, and the stories told afterwards, were more fun than actually watching the programme would have been. I have had so many similar experiences in the past, and still do now.

    Top tip for teenagers planning similar escapades: rent a bouncy castle. Make sure it’s delivered and set up before any potential parental intervention. That way, at the very least, you’ll have a fortress to defend.

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  22. Ah, hanging out with friends while parents are away. It was always a fun challenge. One time, a friend’s parents came home early, and we had to high-tail it out of the house. I went to run out of the back door, the sliding glass door. Thinking it was already open, I ran face-first into the glass. Luckily, neither the door or I were drastically harmed in the process.

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  25. Oh, I know this! I decided on the futon look for beds as a teenager and dismantled my bed and my sister’s, putting the mattresses on the floor. Thought it looked lovely too. My sister nearly broke her bag plopping down onto the bed that was no longer there. And my mum made me bring the two beds back in (from the garden) and reassemble them. I wonder why. I know where my own kids get it from at least when they do these things.
    And here I was worried when I saw the hose in your pics that the TV was going up in a blue light. 😉 x

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  26. Haha oh I’ve totally done this! There’s something about relocating a very location-specific act to a place where it doesn’t usually occur… it makes it all the more thrilling!

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  28. This is the best idea ever!!! And picture number one (the concept picture) rocks it perfectly. Now that we have wifi TV and ten pound flat screen TVs I am totally doing this come July or August. Or whenever the snow disappears. And my parents can’t say a word!!

    Just my wife.

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