Bedsheets and Vacations

Strange title, I know. But once you read the story, it will make sense.

When I was a teenager, we stayed at the beach at Oxnard for two weeks at the beach house that belonged to a friend of my Dad. It was a tiny little place, very old. The type that has a flat roof and a one-car garage. It was one block from the beach. Actually, only about 8 houses from the beach. Really close. It was June. June in Oxnard, CA is overcast and cool. Not summer weather. So it was too cool to spend much time sunbathing, which I don't do much of anyway. I burn, peel and fade. And I don't like sitting in the sand. So no sunbathing. My sister and my friend, Tamara, went sunbathing at the beach anyway. They like that sort of thing. My Dad was there only on the weekends and my mom and her friend, Sue, were there with us.

It was very windy. And damp. In the two weeks we were there, the salt air ate through the paint on the hood of our mint green Ford Station Wagon and there were a few small spots of rust showing through already!

We were standing out in front of the beach house one day, about to get in the car to go somewhere, when the wind blew this sheet down the street. It was bright red. Like an orange-red, with large white daisies with yellow centers all over the entire sheet. It was like a full-size bedsheet! So, someone, either my mom or Sue, grabbed it as it was blowing down the street. They decided they could use it for SOMETHING, so they put it in the beach house. Later on, they washed it and Sue proceeded to get the sewing machine out. She sewed. And sewed. And sewed some more. In the end, we all ended up with "dresses" and "tops". I use quotes, because these were basically just sacks. She cut a piece long enough and big enough around to make a dress, sewed up the side and then sewed elastic under the seam on top and made a seam on the bottom. Voila! A moo-moo. We had tops made the same way, but with elastic on top and bottom. We were all made to wear these red and white daisy sheet outfits! Oi! And the sheet seemed to have a never-ending supply of fabric! It was everywhere! I was like 12 or 13 at the time and totally mortified that they were going to make me where this stupid sheet. Nobody else knew where it came from, it was just the IDEA that it had been rolling down the street. I never thought of it before, but it probably blew off someone's clothesline. What if they had seen us running around in their sheet, all cut up!

What a trip. Did your parents ever make you do something that just embarrassed the heck out of you? Feel free to share!

Oh, yeah, I almost forgot. This was the trip that my mom didn't want to take me back to my ice skating competition. Even though we were only an hour from home. Even though I had been practicing my routine for a long time with my coach. Even though it meant a LOT to me. Didn't matter. It was not important enough to go back for. But I'm not bitter. Okay, maybe I still am. So what.