indy-GO and the mattress mayhem

Our Indy weekend involved the new James Bond, Cold Stone ice cream, a quest to find a restaurant that could seat us in under 90 minutes, an extensive tour of downtown Indianapolis (beautiful architecture and history, but not much in the landscape department), sleeping late, napping after sleeping late, going to bed early after napping and sleeping late, caramel apple cider at daughter-face's new work establishment , and visiting the church Kacey & Nathan have decided to be part of. (Yes, I am aware I ended that sentence with a preposition. I tried wording it numerous other ways, but "of which they have decided to be a part" just wasn't cutting it for me. My deepest apologies to all whom I have offended.)

Preparation for the weekend trip involved Kevin climbing into our attic to get his sister's Christmas tree at her request. After initial searching, Kevin was unable to locate said tree. I informed Kacey via text that her tree may have been the one we planted in someone's yard last year as a practical joke. (Trust me, this was hysterical.)

Facing the fact that she might not have her beloved tree, Kacey replied, "Sheesh. Some Christmas this is gonna be. I feel like Charlie Brown."

Upon reflection, I realized it was the BIG tree we had prank-planted and hers was definitely here. I sent Kevin on another hunt. Still, nothing. Then I remembered, "Oh, yeah, you're sending a 15-year-old boy to look for something he doesn't want to find!" So I told him I would keep sending him back to the attic until he found it. AMAZINGLY he found it on the very next trip.

In anticipation of our visit, Kacey borrowed an air mattress so we would have a comfy place to sleep. They offered us their bed, but we declined and said we were happy to sleep on the air mattress. And then I remembered . . .

(Mom and Dad, please forgive me in advance for the story I am about to tell!)

When we lived in our little one-bedroom apartment in Georgia, my family came to visit and brought an air mattress with them. My sister slept on the couch and we inflated - manually - the balloon-bed on which Mom and Dad would sleep. And when I say "manually" I mean "orally". Yep. No vacuum inflaters back then. Not even a measly little foot pump. We huffed. And we puffed. And we huffed. And we puffed. And we blew that giant overpriced pool float right up. . . over the course of, say, two or three hours.

Some time later we were all sleeping peacefully in our respective beds when the apartment complex came under attack. In the wee hours of the morning we were awakened by an explosion akin to a sonic boom or an 8.2 earthquake:

BOOM!!!!

It hit us so hard we literally screamed ourselves awake. "WHAT WAS THAT?! ARE YOU OKAY? ARE WE UNDER ATTACK? IS EVERYBODY ALIVE?" I ran the 5 steps from my bed to the living room to witness the following: the air mattress had exploded, Dad was lying FLAT on the floor, Mom was draped over him like the wreath on a winning racehorse, and the remaining air (and saliva) in the mattress was poofing out past their toes. Recalling this story still makes me laugh out loud.

I'd give anything to have an actual photograph of "Ground Zero" following this mattress-mayhem, but then again, the mental picture in my head is so worth these thousand words.