I opened up my Gmail, saw the email that was waiting for me, and did a little happy dance.

On behalf of Knott’s Berry Farm, we are inviting a few “mom & family bloggers” and social media addicts, and their families, to enjoy the opening day of Knott’s Soak City on Sunday, May 20, 2012.  Be one of the first families that begin Summer of 2012 with great waterpark fun…

Yaaaay!  More free fun!

I immediately clicked open Gmail calendar, created the event, blocked out the whole day, and sent an invite to The Bean’s email address.

Twenty minutes later, I got a response:

Maybe?!

What the heck?

MAYBE?!  “MAYBE” to my free, all-expenses paid trip to Knott’s Soak City that I earned through the sweat of my blogging?  “MAYBE” to a fun-filled day at a water park that had a lazy river and a wave pool?  MAYBE to letting the boys enjoy a kiddy splash zone?  They were even going to prepare and serve us a free lunch a lunch—food, that I didn’t have to cook OR pay for!  MAYBE?

I immediately created another event and sent him the invitation:

Fifteen minutes later after I invited him to the new event, I received this notice:

Thaaaaat was more like it.

Everything seemed to be going perfectly until I realized:

Oh.  Crap.

I have to wear a bathing suit, don’t I?

Oh, double crap.

I have to go bathing suit shopping.

Seriously, is there any female over the age of 11 who actually likes to go bathing suit shopping?  If she says yes, she’s lying.  I’m still crossing my fingers that those 19th century head-to-toe bathing suits come back into style. 

I would totally rock one of those cotton, full-length babies.

Also, I like the fact that it would hide my mayonnaise-white legs.  You know, as a half-Mexican you would think I would have dusky, tawny gold skin, but nooooooo.  Apparently “absurdly pale” is a dominant gene.

By the way—Portland?  I can’t wait to meet you.  Rumor has it that you are full of people who are just as white as I am.  Do you have any idea how exciting this is to me? 

Anyways.  Moving on.

As dumb as it sounds, trying to find time to go bathing suit shopping is actually taking a bit of scheduling.  In addition to The Bean being in finals this week, we have a vaguely-realistic goal of trying to get the entire house packed up by Friday.  The moving trailer is dropped off this upcoming Tuesday the 22nd, The Bean graduates on Wednesday 23rd, and the trailer is picked up and shipped off to Portland on Thursday the 24th.

It is very, very busy in our house right now.

Earlier this afternoon, while driving down Pacific Coast Highway in the middle of Newport Beach, The Bean and I played juggle-the-schedule over the phone. 

As I crawled my way homeward in the slow traffic, I saw something that caught my eye.

Actually, it wasn’t something – it was someone.

This someone was a she, and she was GORGEOUS.

Seriously, Orange County, the scale is from 1to 10, not 1 to 15.

She was so perfect it was hard to peg her age – 20s?  Early 30s?

It wasn’t so much that she had the perfect body (which she did), it was the fact that she looked like she just stepped straight out of a commercial, or a movie, or some kind of high-class photoshoot.  Her outfit, her hair, her incredible mile-long legs balanced elegantly on high wedge heels… As she bent through the window of her spotless Mercedes convertible, reaching for something for something on the passenger seat, the soft, elegant folds of her skirt blew playfully in the wind.

Dude, I definitely don’t bat for the other team, but even I was craning my neck over my shoulder to get a second look.

As traffic pulled me past I happened to glance down and took stock of myself:

• Size 14 Kohl’s skirt – slightly wrinkled.  Still covered in a small amount of cat hair from this morning.

• Strangely-colored neon blouse that emphasized the pudgy tops of my arms.  Hey, what can I say… it was the first thing that jumped out at me when I raided my mom’s closet this morning (Note to self:  PLEASE, for the sake of your self esteem, PLEASE do some laundry tonight.)

• Walmart “shoes” – I use the term “shoes” loosely.  They are sensible, unattractive, and were the cheapest shoes they had on sale at Walmart.  When you’re scraping the bottom of the barrel at Walmart, you know you’re sporting high fashion.

Feeling fat, frumpy, and vaguely overwhelmed, I heaved a heavy sigh into the phone.

“What’s wrong?” asked The Bean.

“You know,” I said bitterly.  “If you would just make tons of money, let me stay at home, and hire a nanny for the boys, I could spend all day at the gym, hire a professional trainer, and look absolutely smokin’ all the time.”

There was a brief pause, and I could tell The Bean was trying to figure out the proper response.  I’m sure between my tone,  the subject matter, and my absolutely ridiculous complaining, his little internal warning system was on full-scale alert.  DANGER, WILL ROBINSON!  DANGER, DANGER! Anything you say will probably be the wrong thing!

“Well, yeah.  But then again, if I were to go to prison and pump iron for two years, I’d probably come out all ripped,” he quipped.

I laughed out loud, and felt my tension ease.  +10 husband points for the perfect answer.

“Yeah, you’re probably right, Bean.”  I gave another laugh, then continued, thinking out loud.  “You know, I’ve never understood why they do that.  Why feed them healthy food, and give them work out equipment?

“Exactly, Becky.  After two years pumping iron, I’d probably look like that hamster off of Family Guy.”

I laughed again, and felt the last of my pity party melt away.  “You know, what they really ought to do is feed prisoners really fattening foods – like, every Tuesday is Twinkies Tuesday…. or Thursday is Thirsty Thursday – all you can drink weight-gainer ice cream shakes, with endless sodas – none of the diet ones, either.  Think about it – when they got out, if they decided to act out, they’d be so fat they really wouldn’t have the cardio capacity to do anything that bad, or run very far from the cops.”

I could feel myself getting on a roll – I was really onto something here.

“Think about it, Bean.  Instead of giving stocking the prisons with weight rooms and dumbbells, we could give install big TVs and order all the good shows.  Then we could get them all hooked on shows like Prison Break or Dexter.  They’d only have the weekends to do criminal activity – when  their buddies tried to get them to go out and rob a liquor store on Thursday nights, they’d be all, “Nooo!  I can’t!  I’ll miss Grey’s Anatomy!“

“Forget TV, Becky.  If you really want to solve the problem, get them all addicted to World of Warcraft.  You’d never seem them out of the house again.:

And that, dear readers, is why I still have no idea when I’m going to squeeze in bathing suit shopping before Sunday. 

It’s because The Bean and I single-handedly solved the  problem of repeat offenders, thus solving the issue of overcrowding in prisons.

You’re welcome.