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I suppose I should begin with a little back story. I’m nearly, like 95% nearly, positive I’ve already shared this story on the blog, but because it pertains to my current story, you get to read it again – lucky you!

Eight short years ago I was a fresh, eager, and carefree young whippersnapper. I was a junior in high school when our school hosted the annual Aquatic Science summer trip. Essentially, you got to parade around the Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida coastline for two weeks and call it a whole year’s worth of science class credit. I think there were about 18 of selected to participate in this highly prestigious outing.

(blink, blink)

If you have even half of a brain you can see how this was not a class, but an outright vacation for which we got to skip science class for an entire year.

Total win-win situation.

Sure we tested water, examined rivers and streams, explored caves, studied wildlife, memorized terminology, took pop quizzes, and wrote journal entries. But we also road tripped across the most southern part of the U.S. in three white vans for two weeks, pitched tents and camped out on the sands of a beach nearly every single night, cooked all our meals over an open flame, swam in the ocean and soaked up the sunlight, caught stingrays, baby octopus and fish by the bucketful in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, sneaked up on snoozing alligators in the Florida keys, canoed rivers and swamps, went boating and snorkeling on lakes, hung out with the dolphins at a marine center, took a field trip to the New Orleans Aquarium, and engaged in about a bazillion other awesome experiences . Clearly this was, in fact, a vacation disguised as a class. I have no recollection about how much this little jaunt/best summer vacation ever/science class credit cost my parents, who generously footed the bill to further my education and give me an amazing opportunity to experience something I was truly interested in, but I am so thankful I somehow ended up on this trip! My best friend Katie and I signed up together. Along the way we bonded with our other classmates selected to go on the trip and it was an absolute blast. Seriously, it was phenomenally fun, and crazy, and wild, and yes, educational.

Back to the shark tank.

One day we had just finished a boating excursion and snorkeling expedition. We were drenched, covered only by bathing suits, coverups, and towels. I’m blind as a bat without my contacts, but I wasn’t about to wear them in the water and risk contacting some mysterious salt-water eye infection while snorkeling, so I had my contacts out and just accepted that I’d be blind for the next hour or so until we got back to the vans and I could put my glasses on. We walked into some kind of a mini aquarium/nature center at the lake. I instantly spotted a shark tank with one giant lovebug of a shark right in the front. I love sharks. So, fast as my little legs could carry me, I made a bee-line for the shark tank, full speed ahead to see the sweet little guy. Without my contacts in I big time misjudged the distance between the thick pane of glass and my face. I kept running, overjoyed to reach the shark, and smacked loudly, face first into the tank. The shark was right there and I’m sure he about died laughing, as did my friend Katie who was rolling on the floor, tears streaming down her face. This is Katie’s favorite memory of me, ever.

Let’s venture back to the present day, shall we?

A few days ago Ted and I were checking out a little fresh market mom & pop grocery store in Anderson that we’d never been to before. Ted asked me how the fruit compared to the fruit at our usual supermarket. I stooped down to examine the fruit as I walked. Because I clearly wasn’t looking where I was going I smacked head first into one of those hanging weigh scales with a booming DONG sound effect so perfect that you wouldn’t believe this wasn’t a sitcom. The conversation went something like this:

Ted: How does the fruit compare to Kroger?

Lara: (looking down and walking). Hmmm, well the strawberries aren’t so great, but the green beans look amazing! Ohhh, look at these…

Ted: Watch out! Don’t hit your head on the…

(DONG!)

It was awful, y’all. The sound was deafening. I stood there in utter shock, my head ringing, the scale swinging. Ted, meanwhile, was laughing so hard that tears were forming in his eyeballs, his face was beet red, and he was literally hunched over in the aisle gasping to catch his breath. This is Ted’s shark tank, his favorite story of me to date. Every single time he thinks about it (which is often, I assure you) he laughs until he cries.

I am proud to be this week’s Epic Fail Friday.