In my last ‘article‘ (the self-promoting plea to have all of you vote for me HERE doesn’t count–but I am now tied for 866th place!) I started to explain why I was feeling guilty the past Monday.  Of course, that feeling has long since past as we are now visiting my lovely wife’s parents (plenty to write about here, but my wife forbids it), but I realize I left you hanging a bit.  My guilt was not about going to our friends’ 6th wedding celebration without my wife.  Nor was it about all the great wine that I had at the party (the groom, who read Part One, informed me that I missed a few bottles from the late night cigar induced cellar raid: A Sonata Syrah and an Erna Schein Cab–both were great).  I was given my wife’s blessing to attend the event, so no need to fret.

The next day (Saturday) was my son’s birthday party sleep-over extravaganza.  I was looking forward to that about as much as I look forward to getting a root canal at Chuck E. Cheese.  I was hoping that it would not be all that bad since there were only four boys coming.  So much for hope–it really is over-rated.  I was ‘elected’ to take all the boys to a theater in West Philly to see The Lorax.  Why go to West Philly you ask?  Well, the only other theater that was showing it in 3D was on the other side of town and last year the cops were called when somebody pulled a gun on a patron who apparently was talking on his phone during the movie.

No, I was not the guy with the gun.

Nor was I the guy on the phone (although I do really hate people talking on the phone in movie theaters, and if I owned a gun….).

The theater in West Philly is very nice, but it is in the middle of the city so prudence is always warranted.  I am the first to admit that my boys can tend to be knuckleheads, but it is a work in progress.  Growing up in the city, they have learned a few things about being careful and aware, but it still scares the crap out of me when we take them out of our neighborhood.  The other four boys, however, were a mixed bag: a couple are suburbanites from out on the Main Line, and they made my three year old look like a life-long member of the Crips, the others were also from the city, but, well, I did not know much about their ‘street cred’.  So before we left, I made sure everyone understood that we were going to a theater in the city and that they all had to pay attention and listen to me the whole time.  No problem.

We no sooner get into the car and one of the boys, I’ll call him, um, Evildevilchild, asks if he can see my phone.  I was a bit taken aback, but I had the wherewithal to respond “No” indignantly enough that he knew it was hopeless to pursue the matter.  A second later, another boy asked why he wanted my phone.  Evildevilchild responded: “To show you some pictures of some naked women.”

I froze.  I had no idea what to say, and I was driving.  At first I thought I should slam on the brakes, but seeing that we were in the Prius and I was going about 12 miles an hour to maximize the mpg (yeah, I’m that guy), it would not nearly be dramatic enough to scar the kid for life.

Next, I thought I should say something in a calm, cool, and collected voice.  That was not going to work either since I was thinking:

“EXCUSE ME?  YOU’RE NINE YOU LITTLE TWERP.  WHAT THE HECKOLA ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?  NAKED WOMEN????  YOU’RE NINE!!!!  MY SON HAS TROUBLE CHANGING HIS UNDERWEAR SINCE THAT REQUIRES HE BE NAKED–THERE IS NO WAY ON EARTH HE IS READY TO SEE NAKED WOMEN.  COME A LITTLE CLOSER SO I CAN SNAP YOUR NINE YEAR-OLD NECK LIKE A TWIG.”

So the calm, cool, and collected approach was pretty much out the window.  I knew that I was supposed to say or do something, but I was in no way prepared for this to happen this early in my parenting ‘career’.  This is not in the manual.  As time meandered along, the kids quickly started talking about Pokemon or something equally annoying and the moment for me to show some sort of adult-like moxie passed without even a clearing of the throat.  Fail. Epic fail.  A scant few minutes later we were at the theater.

We get out of the car and I told my small pack of Huns to wait by the car as I went to the kiosque to pay for parking.  No sooner did I put out my Capital One card to use did Evildevilchild take off running down the street.  Within 1.3 seconds, he was around the corner and out of sight.  Perfect.  Just perfect.  My three year old was holding my hand and the last thing I was going to do was to leave him there and take off running for that little Satan.  I mean, Darwin was pretty much right and society would thank me later even if his parents, well….  I figure I was taking one for the team.  It might take a village to raise a child, but it only takes one to nip a future drain on society in the bud.  Then I thought my wife would be rather pissed at me, so I did the only thing I could do:  I yelled at my older son.  He then looked at me as if I had just landed from Mars as if to say “You want to blame this on me?”  I told him in my ‘I’m not even close to joking voice’: “Go get him NOW!”  I must say, that voice is the best.  I only use it in extreme circumstances, but it never gets any argument.  Luckily, I guess, my son found little Beelzebub, down the street, hiding around the corner.  Oh well, Darwin loses.  For now.

The movie went rather smoothly after I refused Lucifer’s request for a Coke when I was buying them all drinks.  Call me a lot of things, ‘stupid’ ain’t one of ’em.  We sat down and watched the previews and I learned that the theater actually sold BOOZE!  I knew there was a reason to go to this place!  I figured, however, that A) I f they had wine, it no doubt sucked and B) It would somehow come back to bite me in the tuchus.  I did have to run out of the theater during the denouement to feed the meter (and since the movie was a bit tense at the time my younger son had to come with me, which completely slowed down that process), but got back in time for the end.  As I was ushering my charges out of the theater, Evildevilchild took off like a bat, well, out of hell.  Here we go again.

The saga continues:

Part 3