It must have been ninety degrees!
The weather was unusual for that time of year, but we had planned the day for months. Sweat poured down our backs and plastered our hair to our foreheads and necks. Just when we thought standing in line with hundreds of other people might not be worth it, the line inched along just enough so we could feel the cool air of the mist from the fan.
At the start of the queue, a sign read: 120 minutes. If it had said two hours, we might not have joined the line. But this was the main attraction—the new ride. We had been looking forward to it and were now too far in to quit. We could see the cars on the track. Should we ride in the front? We had waited this long; a few extra minutes might be worth it. We took the turn for the front car—all four of us could ride together. The sound of the airbrakes and the recorded boarding instructions raised the anticipation even more. We were next! One hundred and nineteen minutes of discomfort were forgotten as we pulled the safety harness over our heads. All of us were wearing huge grins on our faces.
And then it was over.
Trying not to ruin the fun with my disappointment, I asked the kids what they thought. And they replied, “I thought it would be longer,” and “I thought it would be faster.” Maybe I had built it up too much. This one family day was costing a week’s wages. We were going to have fun, damn it!
Do you ever do that? Build things up so much in your mind that the reality is never as good? My husband does this all the time—especially with things from his childhood.
He loves to tell the story of the Creamies he used to get with his dad and brother. In the summertime in Vermont, there’s a soft-serve ice cream stand on every corner. Each summer, the boys would drive with their dad from the city to the family’s lake cottage. They called it a camp, however, which I always found confusing. It’s a cabin, not a tent. Anyway, one of the first stops as they drove into the little lakeside town was to get a Creamie cone that towered twelve inches high . . . black raspberry with rainbow-colored jimmies. As the story went, sometimes they would have two!
We’ve heard this story for years. And we follow the same trek and make the same stop at the Creamie stand as we drive into town. And without fail, it’s never as good as the memory. The teenagers behind the counter don’t layer the soft serve high enough. The rainbow-colored sprinkles aren’t supposed to be rolled on—the cone should be dipped into the jimmies for a more even coverage. One year, the stand didn’t even have the black raspberry flavor!
My husband has built up the experience so much that it’s bound to be a letdown. I do this too when I plan birthday parties, holiday meals, and get-togethers. I have a plan, an idea of how things should go, and rarely does it turn out that way. It’s not that things are bad—we have great memories of our visits to the theme parks and the Creamie stands. Spending birthdays and holidays together are the highlights of my year.
Maybe the simple fix is to reevaluate my expectations.