Take Your Children to Work Day(s)

Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day took place on April 26, 2018 across the country. Many kids go to work with their mom or dad or the day. To me, I thought April 26 would be a regular day, until 1a.m. when my mom woke me up.

“Armani,” my Mom whispered. “I’m leaving to Los Angeles for work."

“Okay Ma... Love you,” I mumbled.

“Love you too,” Mom said quietly. “Armani!” She repeated my name again. Now, I’m kind of bothered, because I think she’s going to tell me to wash the dishes as she usually does. I reply, “Yes, Mom.”

She says, “wake up because you’re coming!”

I sit up. I am confused, but conscious.  I immediately started looking for clothes to pack.  

“Chill out, I have clothes for you!” Mom yelled.

Now, I’m still trying to wake up; you know the feeling when you’re between being awake and still asleep. As I start to wake up, I put  on sweatpants and a hoodie, and off we were to JFK airport.

I was feeling very anxious, but I couldn’t show it.  I didn’t want my Mom to take me back home. The flight was 5:14 a.m., and I slept for the entire flight. I woke up when the plane touched down.  I looked outside, and I was excited to see California for the first time. I say it out loud and my Mom turns and says, “you’ve been to LA before!” I reply, “When you are six months old it doesn’t count!”  

My mom then told me to the schedule for the day.

“First we’re gonna got eat lunch, then go to the hotel, and--”

“And then what?” I interrupted.

“Then we’ll go to the Dodgers game,” my mom said.

In the words, of Biggie Smalls, “It was all a dream.” The Los Angeles Dodgers are my second favorite baseball team. The hours quickly passed, and my Mom and I were on the way to the Dodgers game. I’m primarily a New York Yankees fan, so I didn’t have any Dodgers gear. My mom knew this, and bought me a Dodgers’ jersey.

After the Dodgers game, we went to the Hollywood Walk of Fame, where I saw the stars of Michael Jackson, Eddie Murphy and so many others. Later, I saw where the Academy Awards take place.  I was exhausted! It was only 10 p.m. there, but 1 a.m. to my body. I had an amazing Nutella Crepe, shopped at the Guess store and went back to the hotel to rest.

My mom is an event planner. The reason she traveled to LA was to produce an event at the QUE Skyslide building, which is the tallest building in California, reaching 70 floors. The building has a glass slide outside of the building on the 70th floor, and it weighs 10,000 pounds.  The slide is see-through and you can see all of Los Angeles, even the Hollywood sign if you go down the slide during the day, and there isn’t any fog. At first, I was scared to go down, but I went anyway, and it wasn’t bad at all. In fact, it was very fun. As I went down the slide, I saw all of LA, and it was surreal for me to see how big the city was.  

The next day, we went to Universal Studios in Hollywood.  My Mom’s boss, Craig Geller, was gracious enough to buy us tickets.   Riding roller coasters and scary rides aren’t my thing. I’m terrified of roller coasters, but I went on every single ride at Universal, and I checked off rollercoaster fear off my bucket list.  We then went on the Universal Tour, and I got to see so many things that are in movies, like NYC subways, rain falls, and fires.

On my last day in LA, we visited USC, my dream school. I was able to tour the campus and take pictures. It happened to be Freshmen Admission day, so I got to see many kids who are going to the school next year. I even got a backpack to bring back home to remember the school I’ve loved since I was young.

I’ve been asking my mom to take me to LA for the longest time, and she finally got to take me. I love to make people laugh, I love to sing, and I love Hollywood.  Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day was more like four days instead of one for me. I had so much fun, but the only reason why I was upset, was because I needed to catch up on all the school work I missed.