In my head, this was much funnier

Over the past several weeks (or has it been months?  years?  lifetimes?   Yes, most certainly lifetimes.), my teenage friends at church have been renovating the youth room.  Being the dunce that I am, I neglected to take "before" photos, but if you've ever been in the youth room of a church, you can probably picture exactly what we were dealing with.  3 different wall colors.  About 8 couches, all in different patterns and styles, graciously donated by members of the community when they could no longer deny the flea infestation.  Broken coffee tables.  Random bookshelves filled with even more random papers, photo albums, and coverless Bibles.  Cobwebs. 

But it smelled great in there, so there's that. 

After receiving word that we'd be able to accomplish the work by using a memorial fund for a sweet mother of two of my teenage friends who passed away last year, we set about planning the refurbishment.  Just as a side note, if you've never had the pleasure of spending someone's memorial fund, I have two words for you:  "No pressure!"  Sheesh. 

We decided to go with a Starbucks theme, since these days apparently teenagers like coffee?  Back in my day ('here we go', all the kids mutter), we were still hooked on the kool-ade and the pixie stix at your age.  But these days, Starbucks is their Mothership. 

I'm writing this long, arduous introduction to relay only one small part of the story that made me chuckle.  When picking out paint colors, they decided they wanted to do an accent wall in a dark brown.  "Fine," I say, because I am so painfully reasonable.  "Here are some choices," I say, because I am so agreeable.  And you know the name of the color they picked, unanimously? 

"Grounded."

I did a little LOL'ing (ok, I cackled), maybe even did a little happy dance (which frightened several of them), before telling them the name of their choice.  After they learned that tid-bit of information, there was much weeping and gnashing of teeth, and claims that the room would be cursed and "grounded" should be considered a 4-letter word.  Groan, groan, moan.  And all the while, I just got to had to chuckle. 

Now that I've typed it all out, the story really isn't that funny, but I've come this far, so there you have it.  Slow news week - month - year - lifetime around here, I guess. 

"Grounded."  Get it?  Get it? 

Sigh. 

At the top of the list of things I hate

From time to time throughout my life, I've found myself in some pretty stressful situations.  There was that time in 3rd grade when I passed gas loudly in front of the whole class.  Ouch.  Or the time in 12th grade when I got peer pressured into asking a guy to go to the homecoming dance with me.  He declined.  Double ouch.  Or any number of professional situations - from lint brushing Martina Navratilova's black shirt to ACCIDENTALLY driving a 15-passenger bus full of teenagers the wrong way on a one-way street in downtown Atlanta.  (If you're reading this and you're the parent of one of my teenage friends, rest assured we didn't get far.)

But there's one situation that is the stress of all stresses, and it seems to follow me from job to job, wherever I go.  I can't shake it, I can't force myself to relax, and taking any number of deep, cleansing breaths does nothing to help my mental clarity.  Ladies and gentlemen, I present for your consideration, a phenomenon known as:

THE EASTER EGG HUNT.

How many kids will there be?  How many eggs are needed?  What should we stuff them with?  What about kids with food allergies?  Do we have extra baskets in case someone forgets?  Should we divide the age groups?  Who will stuff the eggs?  Where will we hide them?  Will they be too hard to find?  Or not hard enough?  How long will this take?  And the ultimate, most stressful of all the questions:

How will I console the kid who only finds one egg?  How will I face the disappointed look on a parent's face when their child runs over to them to be comforted?  Am I allowed to punch the greedy kids who hog all the eggs?

I try the whole "keep 5 or 6 eggs in your pocket so you can plant them obviously in the path of the struggling hunters" but even then it's sometimes not enough.

My most recent experience included one kid who declared that "this hunt is way too easy," and another complaining because "I only got TWELVE eggs."  I seriously had to stop myself from saying "there are kids all over the world who would love to have ANY Easter eggs."  I'm not kidding.  I was almost "that lady."  It's the stress talking, I tell ya.  

The thing that bothers me most about Easter egg hunts is that they totally play tricks on my mind.  I promise myself every year that this year will be different.  That I won't get nervous or stressed.  That I won't smile and laugh nervously on the sidelines while the madness unfolds.  But every year, I find myself in the same boat.  I'm always at least a little sad about the way it turned out.  Meanwhile, the kids have gotten distracted by a shiny object in the corner and don't even remember it ever happened. 

I'm left with all the emotional baggage and none of the candy. 

Sigh.