Dining with Squirrels

Ben is a lucky charm.

When he was four, he won a tshirt in a drawing at the library.

When he was six, he won 4 passes to a local amusement park in another library drawing.

This month, at age 7, he won 2 tickets to Ringling Brother Circus –  again from the library.

As a person who does not win, I am perplexed by this gift for winning much as I am perplexed by my daughter’s calf muscles.  Where DID those come from?!  Perhaps Ben’s winning streak is happenstance, but it seems to come so very naturally that I do ponder a genetic component.

Anyhow, this is how I found myself at The Greatest Show On Earth on a Sunday afternoon last month.  And if we didn’t know it was the Greatest Show when we got there, we were quickly indoctrinated.  When the announcer rumbled “Are you rreeeeaaaadeeeee for the Greeeeeeaaatest  Show on Eeeeeaaarrrrrrtttthhhhh?” for the sixth time in 6 minutes, Ben said quite impatiently “They keep asking that!”  He was ready already.

And honestly, it was quite a show:  tightrope walkers, trapeze swingers, dancing dogs, roaring tigers, Chinese acrobats, dancers, bmx bike jumpers, prancing horses, very silly clowns, and lots and lots of elephants.  A smelly, extravagant show.

I felt ashamed, at that moment, for begrudging the $12 bag of cotton candy that Ben and Lucia were inhaling.  We had, after all, gotten two free seats.  But our extra second-class seat and the popcorn had set me back $30 and I couldn’t stop wondering how the families around me were managing it:  4 kids, mom and dad, $15 souvenir program, nachos, snow cones, and light-up whirligigs for all.  Not to mention the rock star treatment about 20 families got halfway through the show, being escorted into the ring and driven around in carriages with clowns and acrobats flipping about them as the Ringmaster exhorted them to “Bellobrate!”  Bello was the featured clown of the show.  Bellobrate.  Get it?

I mean, how much had all these folks spent to be here?  They couldn’t all be on library scholarship like we were.  The constant stream of worry here in Michigan about unemployment, foreclosure and poverty just didn’t jibe with pure spendthriftiness in that arena. It made me quite grumpy to imagine that these families might have put this all on their credit card. I was NOT bellobrating.

But then Ben said, face shining, “Now I sort of believe about the greatest show ever!”  And I knew that we could afford what we’d spent and that I was being the most annoying sort of Scrooge.   So I decided to knock it off, stop being so judgmental and suspicious and negative and just enjoy an afternoon of wackiness with my kids.  What a bellobration.