Adventures in Odyssey Home Page

Potlucks & Poetry

Album: 34: In Your Wildest Dreams

Episode: 447

Lesson/Theme: Appreciating your parents

Bible Verse: Exodus 20:12

Characters: Harlow, Eugene

Writer:

Sound Designer: Jonathan Crowe

Original Air Date: May 20, 2000

Last Air Date: September 30, 2009

Description:
It's Aubrey Shepard's big moment. She is standing on stage in front of hundreds of people reciting her best poem. Just as she begins the first line, her parents stand up in the audience and ask her to do her best Winnie the Pooh impression. Suddenly, Aubrey awakes from her daydream to find she is back at home, but realizes she has a problem. There is a poetry reading at Whit's End coming up that she wants to be in, but she wants to make sure that her parents aren't there. Not only that, but it's on the same night as a church potluck. As she's pondering her options, her energetic sister Bethany comes in to bounce on her bed, announce that their grandparents are showing up, and discover Aubrey's secret about the poetry reading. Meanwhile in the kitchen, Ben and Ellen Shepard are discussing how they really do not want Ellen's parents to come with them to the church potluck. Her parents are very out-spoken and have taken a rather dim view of the family's new Christianity. Just as their pondering comes to a climax, the grandparents show up. While the two girls show the pair to their cabin, Bethany inadvertently blurts out Aubrey's poetry reading and how she doesn't want her parents to go. The grandparents agree to try to help her. At dinner, Ben and Ellen briefly bring up the potluck, but Ellen's father suggests that he and the girls spend the evening together themselves. Since they didn't really want the grandparents to come to the potluck anyway, the parents agree. The big night arrives with Ben and Ellen at the potluck and the grandparents and girls at the poetry reading. By way of a flyer and another accidental revelation from Bethany, both pairs of adults finds out what the other is doing. After some running back and forth, they finally meet up at the church and talk about why no matter how old they are, their parents occasionally embarrass them. Ben explains that is part of parent's job because parents are just trying their best to raise their kids.

Questions:
Why didn't Aubrey want her parents to come to the poetry reading? What did Aubrey learn about why her parents embarrass her sometimes? Have your parents ever done anything to embarrass you? Why do you think they did that?