We didn't ride this ride, nor take this picture. The line was too long and my camera was in the car.

I have no pictures to prove it, but  we went to Legoland over spring break. We, the foursome Funkhouse along with the greater population of Los Angeles and San Diego counties, descended upon  the freaky plastic brick universe and set out, come hell or high water, to have fun. Did you hear me? I said Fun. F-U-N.

Problem is, my parents didn’t do theme parks. Maybe once or twice, but not with the obligatory and regularly scheduled pilgramges parents these days entertain.

So I never learned how to embrace spinny rides and fake towns and adults dressed in suffocating character costumes, not to mention the accompanying annoyances: long lines, crappy food, expensive crappy toys, expensive crappy themed lanyards and book bags, and the just plain insidious crap lurking behind every hand-sculpted bush.

And since Theme Park love is genetic, since you either have the propensity to remember your camera, and wear the right kind of congenial smile, and stand in ridiculously long lines, or you don’t—I’m f*#ed.  My Theme Park Gene (TPG) is dry.

*****TPG is  located somewhere in the lower right quadrant of the left helix, same general vicinity as the County Fair Gene (CFG). Neither can be supplemented, bought on the black market, grown in small containers, implanted or divined.*****

Anyway, that Good Friday afternoon at Legoland, I was the only parent putzing through Lego Star Wars Miniland totally  TPG free.  I hoped like second-hand smoke, if I stood close enough to these folks basking in TPG, maybe I’d pick up a trace, maybe find my kids’ every grimace and pose absolutely breathtaking, maybe feel moved to snap pictures of them at every single Lego statuette: Honey, hug the plastic princess. Honey, sit on the plastic turtle. Honey, stand near the plastic fountain, the plastic rock, the plastic river.

I purposefully bumped shoulders at Pirate Shores with a short-cropped woman clearly  fueled by TPG. Her double stroller dangled with three bright yellow gift store bags. The two mild-mannered kids drank lemonade from souvenir cups and fiddled with their fresh sets of Legos. I thought: she’ll help make the lines tolerable, a dash of her TPG and I’ll  be okay with standing on stamped concrete and waiting ninety minutes like it’s free lifetime babysitting on the other end and not a three-minute spinny ride. The transfer failed.

We didn’t buy any souvenir cups or even eat the souvenir food. We didn’t take pictures or wait in any lines. I think we might have frowned, once. Suffice it to say, we won’t end up front and center on  any marketing material.

But to be positive, becuase PAL appreciates positivity and becuase I appreciate his effort to keep me focused on the positive, we did enjoy the weather—breezy with intermittant blazes of sun. We did find it adorable that the kids loved the one ride that we actually rode (the line was 5 minutes long. Translation:the lamest ride in the park, bless their hearts, but they LOOOVED it, despite the outdated, clunky animatronics.).

We still have a day left on our passes. Meaning, in the next ninety days we can return gratis. The thought is nice, and well, let’s just not tell the kids.

Meantime, we’re interviewing folks with TPG. Don’t tell PAL, he’s also fiercely protective and might be uncomfortable pushing his kids off on a stranger. But if you promise to take pictures of the kids  galloping from attraction to attraction like crack-head squirrels and pictures of them caught rapt in wonder at God knows what and pictures of them standing upright while waiting patiently in line, I’m sure he’ll agree to hire you.

Otherwise— hell I don’t know, we’ll have to smuggle in margaritas. What’s not to love on Dino Island with a buzz?

PS. Sorry. School is to blame for the gross lapse in posts. That, and I’ve been crafting non-stop with the kids. We’ve built balsa wood hummingbird-houses and dried and pressed petunias and glued more cotton balls onto more paper rabbits’ asses than you can imagine. We’ve also been baking homemade squaw bread and gathering our own honey from a wild hive and churning butter and raising and butchering our own meat. Oh wait, it’s late and I’m having a lying seizure.