Isobel: "I don't like this."
Daddy: "What don't you like, honey?"
Isobel: "Giving my clothes away. My best clothes. Why are we only giving away MY clothes?"
Daddy: "Because they don't fit you anymore. These are clothes from when you were little and you're getting bigger, so we'll give them to somebody who they will fit."
Isobel: "I don't want to get bigger. None of my good clothes fit anymore and It's making me way too bossy."
It was the first long weekend of the season and the first decent weather we had experienced in a long, long time. For once, I was actually at a loss of what to do with the kids since Mrs. Narrator was off throwing down eight wheels worth of bitch-slap somewhere in Wisconsin. It was warm and sunny and gorgeous so it had to be an outdoor activity. The kids agreed, anything to get out of the house and get away from each other.
I had considered the zoo or other such wild adventures, even the science centre came to mind but I think the only one that would have enjoyed that was me and as for the zoo or the lion safari, the distance to get to them is quite far and the cost of them would poke a gigantic hole in the chances of doing anything else that weekend.
They had been brother and sister all day. Many hours of 'Stop touching me,' and 'I'm not touching you' and 'Daddy, he's touching me'. You know, I always thought that that sort of thing was a joke. Kids don't really talk like that or act that way...the joke's on me...in spades.
"Get you shoes on and get in the car." I said, my patience becoming more threadbare by the moment.
"Where are we going?" asked The Boy.
"Get your shoes on and get...in...the...car..."
"Why are you talking like a robot Daddy?" Asked Izzy.
"Yeah, why are you talking like that?" seconded The Boy.
"Get your shoes on...oh forget it." I sighed. "Let's just go, we'll figure out where on the way."
Whatever authority I had over them vanished the second they realized that if they posed a united front that they were likely to get whatever they wanted from me. Proud as I was that they could work together as a team, even if I had to become the enemy to get them to do it.
OK so I had an idea of where I would take them but didn't want to let on that I had a plan. How can I ever hope to truly be 'The Old Man' if I don't appear disorganized and lost at least some of the time. Where does one take two kids who are on the verge of physically assaulting one another You take those two kids to a mini golf course and give them each a weapon (complete with a non-slip handle) in hopes that they will cancel each other out.
Neither of the kids had ever been mini golfing and I remember many fond hours playing round after round in the summer when I would go to stay with my grandmother. So we went to a little roadside place just outside of town where they had eighteen holes of mini golf and go kart track that seemed to go on forever. We picked out or clubs (including one that was actually small enough for Izzy) and our balls. Purple for The Boy, Pink for Izzy (who couldn't stop giggling about the peach basket full of balls...yes she is my kid) and a black one for me.
First up was The Boy who has the power behind his shots if not the finesse. If the object of the game were to shoot from the tee of the first hole clear to the cup of the sixth hole, the boy would be champion of the free world. He was excited and laughing and happy and it was grand.
Next up was Isobel. Let me state for the record that written on the score card are the words 'Six Stroke Limit On Any Hole'. Now Izzy didn't so much putt the ball as she did push it up. Not like a hockey stick but still with the broadest surface of the club which I thought would be the natural way to use a golf club for the uninitiated. No Izzy used it more like a polo mallet, attempting to hit the ball with the smallest available surface of the club. By the end she had become rather proficient in this technique.Maybe I shouldn't have joked about the pony. Towards the end, she finally put one in the cup without any help from me and asked;
"Daddy, how many hits?"
"Six." I said.
"Oh my god, I'm rocking this." she said.
She shot a lot of sixes that day but you may as well have given her the green jacket right there and then, as far as she was concerned.
From there it was on to go karts. My first concern was that they wouldn't allow Izzy to ride with me and that The Boy would not be big enough to ride on his own. Wrong on both counts and so off to the track we went.
We got geared up in our helmets and breathed in the gasoline fumes that stir the blood and make you want to go like a bastard down that narrow, tire lined track.
"The two seat car is broken right now and I don't think we're going to get it working anytime soon." The track operator said.
We were all a little saddened by this news and turned to go as he called out to us and said that we could use the coupons for a single ride. The Boy was the only single ride possible and he looked at me with both pleading and terror in his eyes.
"What do you think?" I asked him.
"I'm ready," he said already sitting in the car.
He took off like a shot and squealed his tires going around the first of the fifteen wild turns that made up the course...I'm certain the boy remembers it that way, though closer to the truth he was driving like my father. Slow, little faster, little slower, little faster, lot slower, nervous wave with hand very quickly put back on the steering wheel. And in fifteen minutes it was over. The course at normal speed take approximately two and a half minutes to complete a lap (for a seasoned driver said the man) I tipped my hat to the boy for squeezing as much drive time out of his three laps as possible...I have heard him speaking to his mother and his father, describing his day at the races. Two things about that day make me smile...It was his first time on a go kart and I was there to help him experience it and the way he describes his driving, I'm quite certain he will be changing his name to Earnhart any day now...
This past Saturday was meant to be the end of the world according to a particularly religious fellow in the United States. As I have stated many times, we are not a religious family by any stretch and so paid as much mind to this turn of events as we do most other religious events (the exceptions of course being the gift giving religious events).
Isobel and I were out in the driveway working on my car when two men came walking up the driveway. One older one younger. Both carrying a familiar looking book, a brief case and a shirt pocket full of colourful papers.
"Good afternoon sir, could we take a moment of your time on this beautiful day?"
"Right down to the wire, huh?" I asked.
"Something like that. You see sir, on a day with such importance around it..."
"Go away." I said.
"Pardon?" he asked.
"Go away," I said. "I think there's a foxhole next door."
The younger man offered me some of his colourful pamphlets but I politely refused. As they made their way back up the driveway, Izzy asked "Did you know those guys?"
"No," I said. "Why?"
"The way you were talking to them, you seemed like you knew them. What did they want?"
"They think the world is going to end, so they want people to believe in the baby jesus." I explained.
"For real?" She asked.
"For real," I said. "Even though they know that the world really isn't going to end, they still want people to believe in the baby jesus."
"Don't they know that THEY aren't real?"
I was pretty sure I knew what she meant by that last statement, given Isobel's history and perception of christendom but the way she phrased it could open a metaphysical can of worms I was totally unprepared to deal with.
"I guess not. Let's go have lunch." I said.
"Daddy?"
"Yes Pick?"
"Why did you tell those guys that a fox lived next door?" She asked.
"Kind of tough to explain," Isaid. 'ask me when you're older."
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