My Alamo
We went to lunch last weekend.In this case, that was like saying Napoleon marched on Moscow.
We were meeting some of our best friends and their kids (ages two and three), so we decided to go to a burger place that had a huge sandpit and play "system" in the back. I had lunch with Eli 4.3 there last week, where we met the most personable waitress in the world, so it seemed like a good choice.
On the way, Gloria mentioned the possibility of a "trip."
"I thought we might go to San Antonio before Christmas," she said. "Stay somewhere on the Riverwalk. It would be fun."
"I have a rare and disabling kind of brain cancer," I said. "It's not safe for me to travel more than twenty miles from home."
"Nice try," she said.
"If we stay there, what's Eli going to do?" I asked. "It's just a green skanky river and a mall."
"Well, there will be lights everywhere for Christmas," she said. "And there's the Alamo."
"Listen, even for me, the most interesting thing that ever happened at the Alamo involved Ted Nugent," I said.
"Oh, did he play there?" Gloria asked.
"Not exactly," I said. "He did pee there, though. Right on it."
"Was he making some kind of political statement about colonialism?" she asked.
"He was making a statement about being really drunk and needing to pee," I said. "I'm pretty sure that was it."
We rode in silence for a few seconds.
"I meant Manifest Destiny, not colonialism," she said.
"Manifest Destiny, no," I said. "Urination Destiny, yes."
We walked through the restaurant to the sand pit about 10:30 Saturday morning.
That's when I saw my Alamo.
I'm not really comfortable in crowds, and when I say "not comfortable" I mean "run like hell."
[Here's how Gloria explained it once:
"Extroverts draw energy from being around people," she said, on a particularly crowded, loud night out.
"They're not drawing energy," I said. "The bastards are stealing it from people like me. They're energy vampires."
"But it's not really like that," she said. "Haven't you ever been to a party where everyone was an extrovert?"
"No," I said. ]
So when I saw the usually peaceful sandpit and picnic tables teeming with people, I knew I was in trouble. There were fifty kids in a sandpit designed for twenty, and they were all between two and five years old. "Holy Mother of God," I said. "It's France without the burning cars."
"Oh, it won't be so bad," Gloria said.
"Not so bad? Look at that sandpit. There must be forty little boys in there. That's Lord of the Flies without the lizards and the fans."
Gloria laughed.
"You don't quite get little boys," I said. "Forty little girls could play together with no problem. Forty little boys will have some kind of pay-per-view ring out until only one remains."
Alarmist, you might think.
Within five minutes, Eli 4.3 was getting pushed by the resident future serial killer kid. He was almost exactly Eli's size, and for some reason he was stalking him. When he pushed Eli again, I got up from the picnic tables and started walking quickly toward them, just in time to see the kid push him hard a third time. Eli 4.3 was still standing, though, and then he pushed the kid and put him flat on his back.
I guess if somebody keeps trying to hand you a can of whup-ass, once in a while you just need to open it.
This was all happening in the backdrop of about fifty other kids running around wildly, twice that many parents running back and forth, waiters and waitresses brining out huge quantities of food, screaming, shouting, crying.
"I'll tell you what I need," I told Gloria. "People like me need an Epi-pen filled with Xanax. I could keep it in my pocket, and in situations like this I could pull it out and jam it in my thigh."
<< Home