BALL PIT BONANZA!

OMG! Some little kids are the WORST!!

My mom dropped Brianna and me off at Kandy Kingdom in the mall while she went to get her drivers license renewed (BTW, if you’ve already read my 6th diary, you know that Kandy Kingdom is this huge play land with an endless ball pit and lots of crazy little kids running around).

My plan was to watch Brianna play while I wrote in my diary. It was a good plan! She’d have some fun at Kandy Kingdom, and I could FINALLY spend some time alone with my diary. Everybody wins! (Except my mom, I guess, because she makes the Department of Licensing sound like TORTURE.)

The thing was, when Brianna got to Kandy Kingdom, there was nobody else there. If you ask me, that’s heaven! I mean, the WHOLE play land to yourself?! But, apparently the little brat decided that it was too scary or something.

“Come in with meeeeee,” she whined. “It’s creepy all alone!!!”

And okay, I could see that. Kandy Kingdom is pretty big, and just not the same without a bunch of nosy kids knocking each other over to get in.

So, I brought my diary over and sat down on a giant, plastic gumdrop in the ball pit. Since it was just Brianna, I could still write in my diary, right?

WRONG!! 🙁

Brianna started throwing balls from the ball pit. AT ME! At first I tried to toss them back and ignore her, but have YOU ever tried writing about your crush while little plastic balls bounce off your head???

I didn’t PLAN to jump in the ball pit. But there was this sign that said BALL PIT ONLY FOR AGES 4-10, and it was bugging me! Because why should being fourteen mean that I have to miss out on all the fun?! And WHY can’t I enjoy the fun of an almost empty ball pit?!!

So, I dived in.

And okay, I KNOW ball pits are total germ factories, but isn’t everything? If you ever have a chance to jump into an empty ball pit, I highly recommend it! 🙂

For five minutes, Brianna and I had an amazing time splashing around and tossing balls at each other.

But suddenly, and a FLOOD of little kids came running towards Kandy Kingdom. They were all around Brianna’s age, and there were like forty-seven of them!

Okay, more like eight or nine of them. But they were EVERYWHERE. And it was like they were totally hyped up on a bazillion juice boxes and triple ice cream sundaes! Then they ALL jumped straight in the ball pit!!

Brianna immediately joined whatever crazy freeze tag-dodgeball-duck duck goose combo game they were playing and I tried wading through the sea of balls and kids to GET OUT.

I was just pulling myself out when I heard my phone. It’s a MIRACLE I even heard it with all of the screaming and giggling! I checked the pocket where I kept my phone. But it wasn’t there! I checked my other pockets. I scrambled over to the gumdrop where I was writing in my diary. No phone!!

But it was still ringing!!

That’s when I realized…my phone must have fallen out of my pocket…and into the ball pit!!!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!! 🙁

“My phone!” I shouted to Brianna. “My phone is somewhere in the ball pit!”

She did NOT look interested in helping me find my phone. I had to make it a game to entice her. So I said, “Let’s see how fast you can find my phone! And you’ll WIN A PRIZE!”

Brianna’s so easy sometimes. I could get her an orange soda for a prize and she’d be happy. So she started looking.

In less than a minute, a voice said, “Found it!”

Only the voice wasn’t Brianna! It was some other kid!!

Brianna went back to playing with the other kids as I knelt down towards the little girl that found my phone.

“Oh my gosh, thank you SO much for finding my phone!” I held out my hand.

But the girl ran away from me and stuck her tongue out. “It’s MY phone,” she said. “I won the game, so I get the prize!”

NO. FREAKING. WAY.

“Um, NOPE. That’s my phone, sweetie.” I tried to be nice. I really did. But this girl was big enough to know I wasn’t giving away MY phone as the grand prize!!

“You said I’d win a prize!” she quipped.

“Um…”

I looked around. What could I offer her?

“Do you want an orange soda? A milkshake? An ice cream sundae?”

She laughed. That girl actually LAUGHED at me!!!

“I want THAT,” she said, pointing at me.

It took me a second to realize what she meant. I was wearing this super blingy bracelet with all these fake jewels. Chloe actually gave it to me as a joke last Christmas, but now because we think it’s funny, I wear it sometimes.

“My bracelet? Oh…gosh…it means a lot to me!” I pretended to act like I couldn’t give it up. I’ve been around the block with six-year-olds. I knew if I made it seem valuable, she’d want it even more.

Sure enough, she came right over to me and held out the phone. “Gimme the bracelet,” she said. “I won it, fair and square!”

Well…not exactly, kid. I made a big show of sadly taking it off and trading her for my phone.

Thank goodness I have my phone back!! If there’s anything I can’t survive without besides my diary, it’s my PHONE.

Hey readers, what’s the most important thing you ever lost? Did you or somebody else ever find it?