Parenting, and Mermaids With Garden Hoses

Ha! Betcha THAT title made you look, eh? But seriously - I AM writing a blog about Parenting and about, well, Mermaids with Garden Hoses.

Let's start off with the parenting. A story broke last week in Tampa about a 16 year-old girl who didn't wear panties to school on picture day. She ended up sitting in the front row, in a skirt, on the bleachers for a club picture. You can see where this is heading. That's right - her privates ended up on display in the yearbook. Apparently the yearbook staff didn't catch it. The yearbook publisher didn't catch it. No one noticed it until some of the yearbooks went home.

There are just sooooooooooooooo many things wrong with this. Pantyless-girl's Mom is - of course - mortified that her little girl's vajayjay is now recorded for posterity in 2000 yearbooks. (Won't THAT be a blast at the 20 year reunion?!?) Yes - the yearbook staff should have caught it. Yes - the publisher should have caught it. No - the school probably should not have distributed the yearbooks. (Word is that not all of them were out yet when all this exploded, but the school decided the damage was already done, and handed out the rest.)

The girl claims that she went commando "because she didn't want pantylines."

A) There are undergarments out there that handle pantylines. B) What on earth is she wearing TO SCHOOL that's so tight she has to even worry about pantylines? C) Why would she - knowing she had on no panties - SIT DOWN ON THE FRONT ROW OF THE BLEACHERS? A teacher friend of mine also told me that the High School in question has stairs that you can see through as you go up. The girl has been going to school there for 2 years - she KNOWS this.

So face it Mom: little Britney-to-be just ain't that innocent. That girl did that on purpose. Was it to get attention? Was it so she could have a quickie in the bathroom? Who knows. She maybe didn't realize all that would be visible in a yearbook pic, but come on.

This is where the parenting comes in. Mom is now blaming everyone - the school, the yearbook staff, the photographer, the publisher - everyone for the existence of the picture. The only person she doesn't seem to be blaming is THE GIRL WHO CHOSE NOT TO WEAR PANTIES TO SCHOOL. She has pulled her daughter out of school. She wants her little baby - who was so victimized - to be able to have a make-up date for her exams. The school said "No." Rumor has it that Mom is threatening to SUE THE SCHOOL for not letting little Miss Commando have a separate make-up date.

Where exactly is the personal responsibility in this picture? (ha - funny pun - didn't catch that until I was editing...)This is just a tiny example of what's wrong with society today. No one makes the person at fault take responsibility for their own actions. Bart and I had a lengthy discussion about this, and here's what we think we would do in this situation...

IF she survived coming home after not wearing panties (meaning if Bart didn't kill her), we'd definitely pull her from school for a few days. We would definitely try to get the yearbooks recalled. But you know what? We would make her go to school and face the embarrassment of what she did. She would take her exams at school, or get a ZERO and have to repeat the grade. But she would so be going back to school to finish the year. And you bet your sweet patootie (pun intended) that she'd lose her car, cell phone, DS, etc. for the entire summer. Or longer.

C-O-N-S-E-Q-U-E-N-C-E-S.

On a totally different note...I went to the World Famous Weeki Watchee Springs on Saturday to see the Mermaids. ("World Famous since 1947") When I got back, Bart asked "Hey - did you get to see Mermaids breathing out of garden hoses?" And I said "Yeah - actually we did!" I'm a big fan of campy little backroad Florida places. Sadly, there aren't many of them left. This one probably looks a lot like it did 40 years ago. It is every bit as cheesy as you'd expect. They have added a "water park" called Buccaneer Bay. It consists of exactly 4 waterslides, one of which was closed for renovations. If you ever lived up around Pensacola, you may remember "Styx River Water World". This was a lot like that, but not as fun. The spring was pretty, when you could get a glimpse of it through the swarm of humanity swimming in it. The little "lazy river" was fun (sit on tube, float 200 yards, haul tube out, walk back to beginning. Repeat.) The Mermaid show was pure 100% cheese. There were skinny little girls with big boobs dressed up like Mermaids and taking breaths through garden hoses. (Note: if you have a little girl and you take her here, warn her that at Weeki Watchee, Ariel is a blond, and Flounder is a turtle named Chester.)

It was fun, though. Always good to check something off the "I've-lived-in-Florida-all-but-4-years-of-my-entire-life-and-been-in-Tampa-for-almost-5-years-but-haven't-seen-it" list. We did Gasparilla this year - check. We visited the miniature railroad up in Pasco County - check. I saw Jimmy Buffett in concert - check. I went camping at Fort DeSoto park - check. Hopefully in about 4 weeks we'll add "seen a Shuttle Launch" to it.

Hard to top Mermaids with garden hoses, though. I wonder if they were wearing their panties???