Today I experienced my first (and hopefully ONLY) Monster Truck Show. My friend, also the mother of all boys, called to see if we wanted to go. In a moment of insanity, I agreed. So my husband and I schlepped our boys to the State Fairgrounds Grandstand and found our seats with our friends. Our seven little men (combined) were mezmorized by the mud drag races, the tire burnout competition and the challenge course. It was a major testosterone fest. You had speed. You had noise. You had snow cones. What more could you want? Yes, there were girls there, too, but being the protective mothers we are, we opted to skip the Miss Monster Something Something competition. As my friend John likes to say, "There's testoterone flowing out of the faucets over there." While we enjoyed watching these machines manuever, none of that compared to getting in one of them. And I don't mean just sitting in one. I mean RIDING! Yee haw! In another moment of insanity, my friend saw that you could take a ride in a MONSTER truck. I mean this thing held about 18 people in it and had tires as tall as the Grandstands themselves, which I happened to notice were also as bald as Daddy Warbucks. When the driver turned, this big green machine looked like it would flip over and kill everyone on board, not to mention that he also want over a ramp that Evil Kneivel would have been to scared to jump. But as I watched people come and go, I realized no one had flipped over. No one had died. In fact, I saw children getting on board. And a woman my mother's age was actually smiling and waving as she skidded by the stands. We had to have a ladder to get into the truck, for goodness sake. That's just not normal. So, we lined up, my friend and me... and five of our fearless boys, who were probably quacking on the inside, although you would never know it. Kinda like me. The only other comfort was seeing that no one was signing a liability waiver. Nothing to sign meant the chances we'll die are slim. So, I kept my plastered smile on my face and I boarded the truck. And I wasn't that scared anymore. Until we started going and the driver tried to kill us by jumping over that ramp and fishtailing on the dirt track and skidding this way and that on those bald tires as tall as the Grandstands. So I screamed and I laughed and I grabbed my children in the seats in front of me to make sure they weren't going to puke and they had smiles on their faces and gave each other high fives, all while my friend and I screamed and laughed and screamed and laughed some more. But mostly screamed. When we got out of that truck, I felt a little like throwing up my snow cone. But then I took a couple deep breaths and joined the stories the boys were sharing, stories that unlike my very truthful account here, I'm sure will end up sounding so much worse than it really was. In case you care to see, here's a picture of the truck. Don't be fooled by that cute little girl coming out the back. I'm sure she was crying terrified tears just moments before this was taken.
