My youngest son went with my wife and older son to the library the other day.

They go and pick out the week’s worth of books and just kind of hang out for a while.

It’s a fun trip.

When they went to Wal-Mart after the library, Nate decided that he’d take Teddy in with him when they did their shopping.

“Where’s Teddy?”

“Where is Teddy?!”

“WHERE’S TEDDY?!!! WHERE’S TEDDY?!!  I WANT TEDDDDDDDEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!”

So after a frantic look through the minivan, the “big people” realized that Teddy was back at the library.

“Teddy’s at the library…we’ll have to get him on the way home.”

“NOOOOOOOO….SOME OTHER KID WILL TAKE HIM!!!! SOME OTHER LITTLE KID WILL TAKE TEDDY!!!”

It was a full-on freak out.  Big time.  You don’t stop a tornado when it starts spinning, you don’t push lightning back into the cloud….”you don’t pull the mask off the old Lone Ranger and you don’t mess around with…” Nate.

A freak out session definitely alters an adult’s ability to enjoy any task.

It changes our reality.

Anyway, after a truncated trip into town, they got back to the library and got Teddy.  He was safe at the library.

No little kid had taken him home.  No one had stolen Teddy.

What a freaking relief.  I felt bad that I have to work 6 days a week and had missed all the fun.

In Nate’s defense, I started thinking about freak out sessions and how it’s not really something that’s only a little guy’s territory.

We cloak our own freak outs in adult trappings.  We have the vocabulary to describe it more poetically.  We can go to a therapist, or smoke a lot, or develop a big drinking problem, or wreck our cars or get in bar fights…there’s lots of things an “adult” does to express freaking out….but a freak out is a freak out is a freak out.

Maybe it’s not about something like a stuffed bear, but it’s still a freak out.

A friend has a song with a line in it that mentions “children in disguise”.

I guess that’s what we all are, really.  We don’t ever get very far away from whatever we were as children.

We just learn to blend in with all the other children pulling off the same deception.

And it creates a lot of tension sometimes to keep the freak out potential at bay.  It’s hard to either get all your ducks in a row…or to allow yourself to become so delusional that you think it’s all under control.

I guess that’s why we have laws.  I guess that’s why we have “social norms”.

Freak outs could be a problem if everyone was screaming in the Wal-Mart parking lot.

“Where’s my Teddy?!!!”

“WHERE’S MY TEDDY?!!!”

” Oh, wait…I’m an adult.  I don’t have childish concerns like a Teddy…”

“WHERE’S MY PROMOTION?!!!!  WHERE’S MY BIG NEW HOUSE?!!!  WHY CAN’T I CATCH A BREAK EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE?!!!”

“Now….ummmm…enough with the figurative musings….that’s crazy. I’m an adult. Calm down.”

but…..

“WHERE’S MY CAR KEYS?!!!  SOME LITTLE KID IS GOING TO STEAL MY CAR KEYS!!!”