We had a pretty busy day at the Tenor Dad household yesterday. Ruby had her school pictures and, because this is 1978, we will know what they look like in just a few short weeks or months. But it was not only school picture day! It was also the day that we had to take Ruby in to catch up on her immunizations so that they will let her continue to attend school. The appointment, which I thought was scheduled for 45 minutes after school ended, was actually scheduled for 15 minutes after school ended, so I drove over to get her (I usually walk) and ran to the back of the school where they let the kindergarteners out.
I was waiting outside her door with about 2 minutes to release time when I heard them announce over the loudspeakers, “Whoever parked a green car in front of the school, you are blocking the buses. Please move your car immediately.” So I grabbed a screaming Edward off of the slide and ran to the front of the school where I saw a giant bus trying to parallel park behind my small green car. I was told that it was now too late to move my car and I had better never park there again, and that was when I heard the school bell ring.
So now I am racing back around the school, losing precious seconds the whole way, grabbing my daughter, and zipping over once again to my little car, now parked amidst a sea of buses. Edward is still mad about not being on the slide, and Ruby is upset because I am rushing her. Too bad kiddos, we have 9 minutes to get the doctor’s office on the other side of town. And we totally made it with 30 seconds to spare.
Ruby got three shots, the last of which apparently hurt like a mofo, because she has never cried at shots before, but now she was bawling and saying how much it hurt, and Edward, who was two hours past his nap time, was also yelling and crashing into things. Sounds like it’s time for a pretzel at the mall!
I had certainly not planned on going to the mall, and in hindsight I don’t know why I thought the mall was a good place to take two over-tired and screaming children, but it seemed like we needed a treat, and so we got pretzels at the mall. I collapsed on a bench next to some sort of kiosk and shoved half of an Auntie Anne’s Cinnamon Sugar Pretzel into my mouth while the children ran in circles and were generally naughty.
A few kiosks down was one of those mini-carousel things that you can put quarters into and they go around for a minute or two, and Edward really wanted to go on it, but I had no quarters, so I told him no. It was around this time that another family walked over to the carousel and started putting money in it for their kid. Edward, seeing his chance, dashed over there before I could stop him and climbed into the little boat just as the ride was starting. I stood up and kind of shrugged an apology to the family, and they smiled and said they didn’t mind, and so I sat back down to watch Edward ride in a few circles, temporarily happy and not destroying anything. It was when the ride finished and he got down that Ruby asked me something, and I turned my head and lost sight of him.
When I looked back, he was gone. I could definitely still hear him squealing and giggling about something, and I could hear him running around, so I wasn’t too worried. Mostly just exhausted and annoyed. “Edward!” I called out, “Come back here please!” When I didn’t see him again I stood up from my pretzel bench of peace and took a step forward, trying to search the area with my eyes so that I wouldn’t have to search with my feet. That was when I saw him coming towards me from around the kiosk near the bench. And he had something with him.
What he had was a giant pink and white dog of some sort that was bigger than he was, and he was pushing it across the mall floor towards me with a big grin on his face. “Doggie!” he said cheerfully and proudly, as he presented me with his latest horrifying escapade.
“Where did you get that!?” I said, looking around for a store that might sell giant pink and white dogs. The guy manning the kiosk next to us was cracking up at this point, and he informed me that the dog came from Victoria’s Secret, and it was part of some sort of display. Great. Wonderful. Fabulous. I always feel weird going into that store anyway, and now my son had stolen their giant dog.
There wasn’t anything outside the store by way of a display, other than a sign advertising some unmentionable or other, so I tried to put the dog near the sign and arrange it tastefully, but it just looked silly. There were more displays just inside the door, but none of them looked like they had a dog shaped hole in them, and my instinct was to just leave the dog by the sign and sneak away. But no, that wouldn’t really be right, so I sighed deeply and dragged my children into the store.
Navigating the lacy displays and soft-core posters that surrounded me, I tried to avert my eyes from, well, practically everything so as not to look like a weirdo who was only in the store to look at sexy mannequins, and eventually I found a perky young woman with a store badge around her neck. “Hello!” she said to me excitedly. “What can I help you with today?”
“Uhhhhmmm, I think my son stole your dog,” I said, trying not to make eye contact.
“What?” she asked happily, clearly having no idea what I was talking about.
“That pink dog over there,” I said, gesturing towards the sign out front where I had left the dog. “My son brought it over to me, and I think it’s yours, but I’m not sure where it goes.”
“Oh,” she said, clearly very amused by this. “Well, that’s fine. I’m not sure where it goes either. Thank you for returning it.”
“Yeah, I tried putting it under the sign, but it didn’t really look good there, and then I couldn’t figure out which display it was supposed to go to, so I just left it over there, but you can put it wherever you want, or, you know, I’m sure someone here knows where it came from, or, you know, whatever…” I said idiotically.
“Okay, that’s fine,” she said with her beauty pageant smile.
“Ummmm, okay, so, sorry then. Thanks.” I dragged the kids out of the store, past the chuckling kiosk guy, and back to the car, with Edward screaming the whole way because, not only would I not let him keep the doggie, but I also still had no quarters and he wanted to ride the boat again.
“Daddy, why did we have to go in and talk to that lady?” Ruby asked me on the way out. “Why didn’t we just leave the dog by the display that had the pictures of that dog on it?”
“I don’t know,” I said with a sigh. “What display that had the…? …nevermind. Let’s just go home.”
hahahahahahahaha!! This is definitely an Adam Sandler movie moment. Hilar.ious!