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Yesterday I did this for my son:

I am seriously rocking those shoulder pads – don’t you think?

It was the big fourth-grade mountain man rendezvous at my son’s school and my assignment was to read/perform tall tales to small groups of kids in a tepee.

But in true, made-for-tv-afternoon-special-style, I had a work conflict the size of Tennessee.  I was supposed to be in a training – not one where I was a participant but one I was, you know, conducting.  And the part that mattered most was, you guessed it, at the same time I was supposed to volunteer as Calamity Jane for a rapt audience of 10-year-olds dressed as pioneers.

I’m no dummy.  I’ve watched enough of those after school specials to know what was more important.  I blew off the work thing.  But the moment my buddy Pecos Bill rode away on his tornado in my last telling, I high-tailed it back to work, piggy tails and all.

I know it was probably difficult for the 65 people in the training to take me seriously, although, folks from the rural areas of the state practically cheered my outfit.  They don’t call me Calamity for nothin.  (You did just hear that last sentence in my western drawl I hope?)

I made the right choice.  I missed something big but I can make it up.  The trade off was so worth it.  One little girl kept high-fiving me when she liked the stories.  I wish I could recreate her little face for you.  And my Joey went on and on about how everyone told him his mom was so cool and they loved the tall tales.  I think riding the real horse and throwing axes was probably way cooler than listening to me.  But I won’t walk away from a compliment.  No sir.

Look at his face in that picture!  He is so dang proud of me.  In two seconds, he’s going to wish we drove a car with tinted windows, he’ll be so embarrassed I’m his mom (yeah for teenagers!).  So, I’m glad for these two seconds where I can be my Calamity self and he’s happy about it.