True love runs hot and cold: Just ask a Chiefs fan — or anyone who loves Disney rides
I’ve found the meaning of true devotion and it’s those lovesick fools at the Chiefs Wild Card game who were out in subzero weather baring their naked torsos.
Yes, now my measurement of everlasting adoration is this: Fans who choose to go topless cheering on the team in a stadium where the windchill is negative 27 degrees, which I imagine would have a lot in common with sitting on the ice rings of Saturn.
As I watched the shirtless men from the comfort of my home, I glanced at my husband and shared that I don’t think I love anything enough to endure that kind of frosty agony. I quickly amended that statement and said I would, of course, do it if it meant saving a life.
Specifically, his life or the lives of our children. You know, if there were some kind of nefarious kidnap or hostage scenario where to ensure their freedom or to save the world, I had to expose myself, half clothed, to temperatures usually found in a cryotherapy chamber for a couple of hours.
Fortunately, I can’t imagine that happening, and as for sacrificing for others? I will admit that I’m judgy in what I think is worthy of my involvement. For example, I will rarely wait in a long line.
I fear my kids’ entire childhood was me saying, “No (blank) is worth that line.” From school pickup to amusement parks I’m very opposed to investing any of my time in waiting. In terms of getting my kids from school, I had them walk to my car, which I usually parked a block or more away to avoid being trapped in that traffic morass.
One of the many things I never understood about school pickup were the parents who would arrive at the school a good 45 minutes before the bell rang to ensure that they were first in line to get their darlings. I did summon the courage to ask a mom why she gave up 45 minutes of her day, five days a week, August through May, to sit in her car so she could be first in line, and her response was, “Because I love my children.”
That response right there is a master class in how to shut down a question. There’s never a comeback if someone plays the “I love my kids” card. Your only response is a smile with maybe a head nod as you slowly back away.
As for amusement park lines, I will pay for a fast pass or whatever you call it to skip waiting. The one time I bowed to my daughter’s pleas to stand in a huge line — like, a good two hour wait — was for the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train at Disney World. The temperature that day was the opposite of the temps at the Chiefs Wild Card game. It was a suffocatingly humid inferno, and from the aroma wafting down the line, it rendered any deodorant impotent.
The wait, though, proved beneficial. Not because the ride was awesome but because when we disembarked from the train my daughter looked at me and said with a sigh, “Yeah, you were right. This ride wasn’t worth that line.”
I teared up a little bit, or perhaps it was sweat seeping from my eyeballs, because I was so proud that my child was embracing my no line lifestyle.
That could be my version of true love. When your minds meld with another human and you know that forever you will deeply agree on the same thing.
Reach Sherry Kuehl at snarkyinthesuburbs@gmail.com, on Facebook at Snarky in the Suburbs, on Twitter at @snarkynsuburbs on Instagram @snarky.in.the.suburbs, and snarkyinthesuburbs.com.