Thursday, March 09, 2006

A Day

Eli 4.7 came into our bedroom at 5:30. Sometimes he'll crawl into bed with us and sleep a little while longer.

He'll sleep a little while longer. Gloria will also sleep, because if she had been in Moscow during 1917, she would have slept through the Russian Revolution.

Unfortunately, I'm a light sleeper. Eli and Gloria are also both colossal bed hogs. In terms of conquered bed space, Eli is the United States and Gloria is the former Soviet Union.

I'm Iceland.

I had to be at work by 7:30 today because I had to leave by 9:30 to get to the pool by 9:40 to finish swimming by 10:20 so that I could drop off the car by 10:30 to get repaired and take the loaner back to the house to shower by 11:15 and then install the car seat in the loaner so that I could pick Eli up by 12 so that we could go out to the mall and go to Inflatable Head Wound Wonderland.

Gloria asked me why I was taking the car in. "The tire people told me all four struts were leaking," I said, "and they need to be replaced."

"What are they leaking?" she asked.

"Some kind of strut fluid," I said, thus showing off my extraordinary knowledge of automobiles.

"Oh, and one other thing," she said. "Why is there a census form in my mail pile?"

"You're the designated respondent for all census-related material," I said. "I checked the box on our marriage license."

"Hmm," she said.

"You can change it if you want to, but you have to fill out a BR-549 form and attach a notarized waiver," I said.

"I'll look into that," she said.

After I picked up Eli and we got to the mall, we met Gloria and headed over to Inflatable Head Wound Wonderland. I mentioned this place before, but it's nine thousand square feet of inflatable slides, moonwalks, mazes, etc. Kids absolutely love it.

What this establishment has forgotten, though, is that whenever children under five years of age are bouncing on inflatable thingies, they become bighorn sheep. Their heads are uncontrollably drawn to each other. So as you sit nearby, listening to the roar of the air compressors that keep everything inflated, you're mentally counting down the time until your kid comes out crying and holding his head.

I tried to cut down the risk as much as I could. The first thing I did was identify Robby Roid, the five-year-old who is so aggressive that you suspect he's already using steroids. There's always a Robby Roid at Inflatable Wonderland. He's got the haircut, he's the one yelling at every other kid, and every time he jumps, he's disappointed if he doesn't hurt someone on the way down.

"See that kid?" I asked Eli 4.7, pointing to today's concussion causer. Eli nodded. "You're Superman, but he's Kryptonite," I said. "Stay away from him."

Twenty minutes later, a kid (not Robby Roid) came out of an inflatable holding his head and bawling. A few seconds later, Eli came out, holding his head and bawling. "It wasn't my fault!" he sobbed. "That other kid jumped into me."

Eli sat on Gloria's lap in a chair and cried for a little while, then an attendant, who was curiously absent otherwise, showed up and gave Eli a push pop. Gloria looked at me and just laughed as the guy walked off. "What is that?" I asked. "A consolation prize for a head wound?"

"Apparently," she said.

"Out of my way!" I said, standing up.

"What are you doing?" Gloria asked.

"I'm going to go in there and break my arm. Maybe I can get tickets to the Final Four."

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