Tagging Along As Your Parents' Buddy? Me Too

Give The People What They Want is a monthly column on the happenings of a preteen, written by 12-year-old Henry Jones.

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So this summer, I went on a roller coaster of adventures and experiences — from camping in a nest of flies, to going to a Korean Spa and getting stuck in traffic. I’m here today to talk about it.

Let’s talk about the first experience: camping. I went camping with my family, and my mom’s friend and her kid. I slept in my dad’s van and the others slept in tents. The second we got there, flies and mosquitos were everywhere. I don’t wanna go too much into detail about this trip or else this article would be as long as the entire “Dark Tower” Book Series by Stephen King. We went on a hike up this fire road, my brother and my mom’s friend’s son were playing with the other neighboring campsite kids.

A couple of weeks after this, I went to LA for a concert my dad wanted us to go to. I didn’t pack anything except for my phone because we wouldn’t be there long. The hotel we stayed at was pretty nice, it had a bunch of signatures of famous people displayed on the walls — I’m pretty sure Frank Sinatra’s was on there. We got settled into the hotel room, and the first thing we saw when we walked into the room was a giant mural of Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi dressed as the blues brothers. My brother was scared of it, so he stayed away from it at all times in the hotel room. We ate some food at this diner in the hotel and took a dip in the pool, which was extremely cold, so we left shortly after.

We headed out to visit Hollywood Boulevard, we walked into this big music store for a bit, and I got to see Ray Liotta’s star on the Walk of Fame, so that was fun. We decided to head back to the hotel and get ready for the concert. The Show was King Gizzard and Lizard Wizard, which was this Australian Band that played all sorts of music. We took a rideshare over to the Hollywood Bowl, where the concert was at, and as soon as we entered the place it smelt of Marijuana and Pot, which I was very preturbed by.

I guess the smell of Weed doesn't go well with my 12 Year Old Nervous System. After a bit of begging, my dad decided to go get us some snacks, so we got up and went to go get some popcorn. When we returned we just abandoned our seats and decided to sit on the border of this planter box. The concert was nice, weed smell, was not.

The only time I went to the beach this summer was because my dad wanted me to use my metal detector I had gotten for my birthday. It was fun, but all i found was a Corona Bottlecap, so we went home.

Most recently, my mom invited me to go over to this korean spa, now technically I wasnt allowed in, since only people above 13 are allowed, but we just pretended I was a year older. Me and my parents were split, me and my dad went to go to the mens room, which I will talk about in a bit, and my mom went to the womens room.

Now let me tell you, as a 12 year old boy who has never gone to a spa before, I was shocked when, as soon as I stepped in, I saw a man’s rear end. We were required to wear an outfit in the spa, but in the mens room you were supposed to be naked, my dad followed this rule, but I just stayed in the outfit. It was very awkward considering my mom had not mentioned having to be nude to go here, but my dad eventually put on his outfit and we went into the sauna/steam rooms.

The steamroom must’ve been on full blast or something because I couldnt see anything. As a person with glasses, if your lens get fogged up you're practically blind, so I couldn't see anything because of all the steam. We eventually decided to leave the men's room and go into the relaxation room, where there were buckets of candy and grapes and water dispensers. We basically stayed there the entire time, we visited a couple of other rooms in the spa, including a “Red Clay Sauna” which was just a sauna but the walls were clay. We also went into this ice room that smelt strangely like those gel ice packs they sell at Walmart.

Me and my dad decided to go out and eat some food, since there were numerous food places outside. After a massive parking problem, we visited this Hot Pot place, I got fried chicken and my dad got this crazy-looking pork bowl. We left and picked up my mom from the spa. We went to pick up my brother from daycare and drove him over to this Japanese convenience store called “Daiso”. I got a bag of candies and my dad took me into this cigar/pipe shop.

Oh, also, im gonna go do some horse stuff later this summer with my grandma. Lesson learned: Korean bathhouses are wild.