I was THAT adult

Due to an early flight, my small family and I stayed at a hotel by the airport last night. This particular hotel has a kid-friendly environment. A waterslide, a shallow pool, and plenty of appreciative kids running amok to prove it.

It was on that particular waterslide that I became that adult. Don't know WHAT adult I'm talking about? Picture it. You're six-ish, seven-ish and your parents are yaking with their pals poolside. They've nearly forgotten you exist. They've forgotten how clever your mind is, and how fun it is to be unsupervised. So their backs are turned, both figuratively and physically. That is interpreted to mean weeeeeeeehahahahahahaweeeeeeeee! And everything else in between.

Okay, so to break it down;

"Weeeeeeehahahahahaweeeee" = run across the slippery pool floor, shove your way past younger children (at times knocking their heads against the wall of the stairs going up, up, up...) and barging under the arms of those who are crammed in a semi-line up near the mouth of the waterslide, then leap (all three of you) onto the waterslide and rush down like some flashy-swimmingtrunk-clad-train and crash into those trying to scramble out of the way at the bottom. Yeah... that's what it means time after time until the one lone parent who has had her butt dragged up that slide to appease her only-child son loses her patience.

Okay, enter THAT ADULT. duh duh dunnnnnnhhhhhhh!!

But first, a flash back - (so you know why I know what to say to strike fear into the hearts of these three wee loosecannonballs er...children)

Picture it, 1980-something. A mall. Three country cousins. An escalator. No supervision...... Yeah....

"go up the down, and down the up!! The bigger kids are doing it!!"

In fact, the teenagers were riding the handrails up the down and down the up. We were restraining ourselves compared to them. But we were slower, more innocent, naive, catchable.

The mall security was called in, she grabbed us, bagged and tagged us, had us at the exit of the mall by that tender bit under our arm threatening to take us to the police station to show us videos on how children lose limbs doing what we were doing when I said "But what about my mom?" (my mother was bent over laughing in the ladies wear department watching me trying to talk out way out of it).

Okay, so now I know what being "Paged" means in mall security talk. (mommy=enforced apron strings) Sigh, no fun.

Soo....

Place yourself in a kid's POV and see the adult that snuffs your fun. THAT ADULT. The bigpeople that is the killjoy. The scary stranger who says, "You shouldn't be pushing and shoving past all these kids. Which one of these people here are YOUR parents?" The bigpeople that makes you swallow real loud, the bigpeople that you fester over after you're too embarrassed to go up that waterslide staircase again in cxase they are there chaperoning from the top. The bigpeople the three of you make plans to seek six-year-old-deviance-revenge upon - though don't execute the plan because... you're six....

Sigh.
I lost my patience at the top of that waterslide and nameddropped their parents. It stopped their dangerous behaviour, but I felt bad after. I felt like ... an adult.
I am an adult, I know. I have a son whose head I don't want knocked against the wall by eager watersliders, but being THAT adult is like wearing big shoes. I was a hellian kid. I had plenty of THAT adult trying to keep me and the others around me safe, but I never thanked them for it.

Now, I just might.

Thanks, THAT adult security guard for pulling me off that escalator and not letting my arm be ripped off in the mechanism that drives that machine. ;)