It was a beautiful day at the annual art festival, the kind where everything just feels perfect. The sun was shining, I had all my artwork beautifully displayed, and I had my trusty team—my daughter, my son, their significant others, and my cousins—all ready to help out.
Little did I know, Mother Nature had other plans.
The sky began to darken out of nowhere, and suddenly, we felt that first hint of wind. You know, the kind that starts off gentle, then slowly builds until it’s like, “Is that a breeze...or is my canopy trying to make a break for it?”
Spoiler alert: it was the canopy.
One second, we’re all chatting and relaxing, and the next, the wind picks up like it's auditioning to be in Twister 2. Before I can even shout, "Hold down the tent!" the legs of the canopy start lifting off the ground as if the whole setup was preparing for liftoff.
My daughter immediately jumps into action and grabs one of the canopy legs and her boyfriend grabs another. They are there, digging their feet into the ground, holding onto it like they're trying to stop a rogue spaceship from blasting off.
My son? He’s the practical one. He’s already halfway to the car, running back and forth, loading the paintings into the trunk as if it’s an Olympic sprint.
Then, there’s my cousin—bless her heart—who’s scrambling to stuff paintings into plastic bags as fast as humanly possible. She looks like she’s speed-bagging my entire collection in a panic, trying to save each piece before they can turn into a soggy mess.
Meanwhile, my other cousin stands frozen in complete disbelief, staring at the chaos unfolding like we’re all trapped in an art-themed tornado. I could almost hear his inner monologue: "How did this happen so fast?" Trust me, we were all asking the same thing.
And then there was my son’s girlfriend. Sweet, sweet girl—her first time at an art festival with the family. She’s standing there, bless her soul, holding an umbrella like it’s going to magically stop the wind from launching the tent into orbit. She kept offering to help, in the most polite way possible, but we didn’t have time to figure out a task for her amidst the chaos. So what did we do? We just told her to go sit in the car.
Her face said, "Are you sure?" and our faces said, "Yes, get to safety before this tent decides to make you collateral damage."
With my daughter holding down one leg - her boyfriend the other, my son shoving paintings into the car, my cousin bagging up artwork, and my other cousin still looking like he just witnessed an alien invasion, I was left wrestling the rest of the artwork. At this point, it’s no longer an art show—it’s a full-on battle for survival against the elements.
The rain came down like buckets, drenching us all, and we were running around like soaked chickens, trying to keep the paintings dry. If you could see it, it was like one of those slow-motion disaster movie scenes—except we didn’t have a cool soundtrack, just the sound of wind, rain, and "Get the paintings!!"
Finally, after what felt like an eternity of struggling against the tent, the rain let up, the wind died down, and we managed to stuff everything into the car. All of us stood there, drenched, out of breath, and a little dumbfounded, but we couldn’t help but laugh.
The whole thing was like some ridiculous comedy sketch where you think, “This can’t get worse,” and then... it does. But at the end of the day, no paintings were lost, and we all made it out (mostly) unscathed—though I’m pretty sure my son’s girlfriend now thinks outdoor art shows are some extreme sport.
It was chaos, sure-but it's also one of those art show memories that makes you laugh every time you think about it. :)