Brandon in La-La Land

Over the weekend, Kristy invited some friends up to stay with us in the Springs. Kristy and Kayleith go way back and have known each other since middle school. These days, Kayleith and her husband, Tim, and their daughter, Ella, live about three hours south of Colorado Springs.

As we were chatting about stuff we could do together, we decided to head over to Cheyenne Mountain Zoo. After all, the zoo is much more fun when you have a two-year-old “ooo-ing and awe-ing” at all the cool animals. By the time we arrived at the zoo, it was getting pretty hot, maybe upwards to 95 degrees and as we wandered through, we all agreed that the heat was just sapping our energy and making us pretty lethargic. Of course, it’s the kind of “complaint” that everyone laughs off and thinks facetiously to themselves, “Oh, aren’t we suffering.”

And then there’s me. In my state of luxurious lethargy, I ended up in la-la land and thoroughly embarrassed myself.

After walking through one of the enclosed buildings with giant sized African bugs, brightly colored exotic birds, and a gracefully slow-moving sloth with massive claws, I wandered outside behind our little expeditionary group, my mind somewhere else completely. This is exceedingly important to note. My mind was somewhere else. I don’t remember completely, but it might’ve gone something like this: “Wow. Isn’t God creative to make all these bizarre looking bugs? Hmmm . . . Tim’s got the map. I wonder where he’s gonna take us next. Man, is it hot out here. . . . I wonder how that new “Pirates” movie is. . . . I wonder how much zoo keepers get paid. . . . My wife is awesome. I like to gently rub her back without even really thinking about it.”

And that’s when a familiar voice shook me from my state of half-conscious, sloth-inspired slumber. Only, it wasn’t the voice of my wife. It was Kayleith, attempting to communicate to me that whatever stunt I was trying to pull was more awkward than comedic, at which point, I jumped about three feet in the air and landed about five feet from my original position as I realized . . . I had been rubbing the wrong wife’s back.

My newly energized brain scrambled to think of a way to justify my actions or play along that I had just been pulling a little joke. But why? Why would I intentionally do such an awkward thing? It would never fly. So instead of saying anything, I just stood there stupefied, my aforementioned scrambled brain paralyzing my mouth.

Embarrassing? I’m not sure the word is strong enough. Fortunately, Kristy’s friends (whom I was hanging out with for the very first time!) are gracious, forgiving, and best of all, good-humored. After the dust settled and the laughter subsided (maybe 20 minutes later), Kayleith confirmed that after seeing how far I'd jumped and how beat red in the face I was, she knew that it had all just been a big mistake.

I guess it could’ve been worse. But I’ll leave it to your imagination as to how.