All the good ones wear red hats

I am really, really supposed to be asleep. But I don't think I am. And in my sleeplessness, I remembered a funny story that NEEDS to be told before I can sleep.

A couple years ago, my friend Merrie and I took our youngest children to Boondocks--a place with a huge arcade, bumper boats, paintball, etc. (Yes, we had some money we needed to get rid of.) One of the automatic ticket counter machines gypped me out of a few tickets (heaven forbid...cuz there's a big difference in quality between those 30 ticket items and the 33 ticket ones). So I told the red-hatted employee at the front desk. She said she'd page the repair guy, that I should wait for him by the machine. I did that for about five minutes, which is about four minutes longer than I'm comfortable standing, and then I sidled on over to the closest bench.

I'm still within sight of the machine, but I'm nervous that I'll miss the repair guy. After another 10 minutes, I'm getting pretty worried that I've missed him and that he's on to resolving other mother's desperate problems. But behold, I see a guy approach in a red hat and work shirt, looking around. I run over there lickety-split and breathlessly say to him, "Are you the one I've been waiting for?" This gentleman looks at me, raises his eyebrows, and then says, "I don't think my wife would think so." I follow his gaze to the table full of his family, celebrating someone's birthday.

Wow. Did we have a chuckle over that one.

And, of course, the actual repair guy showed up a few minutes later; greasy, long hair hanging out of his red hat, stale smoke on his breath and a huge God complex due to his power over my fate. Made me want to run back to the happily married man and say, "Okay, I get it, but are you any good with a wrench?"

And now.... I can sleep .... my humiliation lives on the internet.