Don't Make Me Use This Wand

By the power of Grayskull!!!!... no wait, that's not right.  LUMINOS!... no, that isn't it either.  Well honestly it really just doesn't matter.  I have a wand and I'm not afraid to use it!  What I AM afraid of is a group of about 10 eight year olds that I'm going to have to try to keep up with at a place called MagiQuest tomorrow.  Yes, you guessed it, or you would have guessed it if you tried... Say, are you really paying attention here?  It's my oldest's 9th birthday party tomorrow, and she picked MagiQuest as her venue.  This place is pretty amazing.  It's an indoor interactive park where you wave your magic wand (i.e. wand with this infrared motion sensitive thingie in it that might as well be magic for all I understand about it) and interact with the world around you.  Magic chests open and give you gold.  (This is an electronic thing, people.  You apparently aren't really allowed to try to rip out the painted gold coins and jewels in the chest.  I learned that the last time I was there.  There's just nothing like some college kid dressed as a wizard pulling you away from a chest and threatening to escort you from the building to end your day of play!)  Unicorns extoll your virtues and give you awards.  The princess asks you to help her find her jewels which are scattered around in the dungeons (See?!  I told them I was supposed to get them for her!).  And overall it's just quite simply cool as hell!

Of course it's cool when I sneak away from my children and go on my own... kind of like Disney World... not that I'd do that... as far as they know...  But give me 10 kids who are all running wildly through the place searching for the Gargoyle who hides better than Eric Rudolph in the North Carolina mountains, as many or more parents who are all residents of the bible belt and leary of anything that sounds subversive like Harry Potter and interactive games that include wands, and we all know we have the recipe for me yanking my hair out in hunks and cowering in the princess' chamber babbling incoherently about jewelry.  Okay, now that I think of it, a princess' chamber filled with jewelry pretty much is my happy place.  Regardless, THIS, dear readers, is what my daughter chose for her birthday party.  And frankly, I don't blame her.  Everything else aside, it really is cool.

So tomorrow, this is where I'll be.  I'll be running through the castle library waving my wand at different things and making magic happen, creeping through the dungeon and the crypts with a five year old clinging to my hand and telling me to hurry up and find what we need so we can run out again, and mostly gorging on diet coke and grocery store birthday cake to calm my frazzled nerves.  On the plus side, I have my own wand.  And it has a really cool topper... that makes magic sounding noises!!!  What more can a girl really ask for?  Someone warn the wizards to look out!