7:15 Seriously contemplating purchase of an IV drip for caffeine that is timed to start fifteen minutes before my alarm rings. I consider trying to invent such a thing if it doesn’t exist.
8:30 am Frisbee golf! We play it “cooperative mode.” I’ve learned that using terms from video games makes ideas more palatable. “Cooperative mode” allows me to avoid fights over cheating, how many throws we’ve each made and general mayhem. It also means there is only one RFO (Randomly Flying Object) in the sky at one time.
9:00 am Random stranger offers to let us borrow his discs. I suspect they have been laced with crack, so I decline. He is rather adamant, I suspect now that rather than a crack dealer, he might be a disc salesman who hopes we’ll like his product so well we want to buy one of our own. Hm. Same thing, really.
I refrain from telling to to go f$$$ himself in front of the boys. I really don’t want three or more RFO’s in the air at once. Seriously. Is the phrase, “We’re perfectly happy playing exactly was we are, and don’t need any more discs, but thank you for offering,” difficult to understand? Apparently, I have slipped into Polish.
No, the idea that he might just be a friendly person never occurred to me.
9:30 am And we’re done. When you’re 9 years old, the shortest distance between two points is anywhere you go as long as you run top speed. All eighteen holes in an hour. Well, except for 12 which we never did find, and we couldn’t find eighteen either, so we just threw it at the nearest basket we could find. Which happened to be #7. But the boys had pretty much had enough of that game and it’s easier to say, “Hey, let’s call that 18 and we’re done.” Bazinga.
“Now we need to find somewhere to wash our hands and go to lunch.”
That was Byron, not me. I should probably find it disturbing that the 9-year-old is more fastidious than I.
And it’s only 9:30 am. But the guys really seem set on the idea that “lunch” follows frisbee golf. The possibility that there may be time between game and “lunch” does not appear to be an option.
9:45 am At Panera. Yes, they serve lunch all day, which is nice because the boys are set on mac and cheese, and I’m not sedated nearly enough to deal with disappointment. I don’t know the Panera menu at all and I’m juggling a reckessly perky cashier, Blake and the large chocolately death bomb he’s picked up and must put back, Byron who is explaining the importance of baguettes and the woman behind me in line who just stands there breathing like I’m taking too long.
So, okay, two-fer lunch special sounds good and cheap. I take the first item on each menu for the two-fer, only to realize that it’s two-fer but each item is priced separately. Then why the hell is it called two-fer? Holy crap. $$$ Whatever. Give me the blinky coaster and let me get away from the breathing woman.
10:15 am Weird man in fedora sits behind me and starts talking to the boys. They seem entertained, so I refrain from telling him to f$$$ himself.
10:20 am He won’t shut up. Seriously, am I wearing a sign today that says, “Hi, although I refrain from looking you in the eye and when you mutter your first word at me I glare at you with every ounce of feral strength I possess, by all means keep f-ing talking to us you infernal moron.”?
Apparently, being out in public with cute red-headed twin boys is an invitation to every wack job out there to start up a conversation. I begin to think it would be a good lesson in not talking to strangers if I scream like a howler monkey every time someone approaches. Perhaps pepper spray. Or a good kick in the nuts.
1:40 pm Quiet afternoon so far. The boys are entertaining themselves with videos and games and the occasional wrestling match that has rules based on some sort of unfathomable quantum mathematics. I am reminded of “Calvinball” from Calvin and Hobbes. Huh. Living with the boys makes that comic strip so much more meaningful.
Dare I rock the boat and suggest some sort of organized activity, or shall I let the sleeping beast lie? Tune in later to find out…