I was helping a friend from school who was having surgery in Boise. It started off with me driving her down and back the same day. It ended up being me, her two sons, her recovering in a Super 8 hotel room for 3days.
Her two sons 9 and 10 are great, imaginative, and extremely high energy. (That’s code for a 10 year old with autism and a 9 year old with ADHD.) Before we leave, she lets her sons back their own suitcase…This includes a set of samurai swords, a hole punch, half of a jump rope and a giant toothbrush that’s really a back scratcher. “Hmm,” I ask my self, “are they planning on being attacked by evil giant tooth that throws Chinese Ninja stars made of paper?” Well, the evil tooth never showed up; so, they used the weapons of mass imagination against themselves in varying ways of demented little boy torture.
I took my friend to same day surgery and then took the boys to Borders, the video game store, Target and the hotel swimming pool. The whole time they kept asking about Toys R Us. I might not be a parent, but I know trouble when I hear about it. Toys R Us was going to be the fixation of the day and I wasn’t going to fall for it. I knew that the whole time they would be asking me if they could: get this or buy that! Wondering the whole time why my purse didn’t have the equivalent of Fort Knox’s reserved gold bullion.
As, I was trying to decide my best mode of action against this toy obsession I got a call that my friend was ready to go home. “Ah ha! Take that; little boys!” Diversion is the best policy at least for the short term. I was given instructions about where to pick up my friend’s prescriptions and drove there to get them.
Apparently, getting narcotics at a pharmacy is a little more complicated than picking up a couple of Happy Meals at the McDonalds drive through. I had to show ID, find her insurance card, then find the correct insurance card, sign my name to a computerized sign sheet and a give a full retinal scan! (I am showing no signs of retinal detachment at this time, in case you wanted to know.)
Needless to say, I had to leave before getting the prescriptions because of issues with the insurance. I picked up a very groggy friend, ask her about her prescription plan, got her information and headed back to the pharmacy. I left the kids and their mom in the car with the radio playing and strict instructions to the kids, that if they ever wanted to see Toys R Us again in this life time they better be good. I picked up the drugs, got back in the car, turned the ignition and nothing happened. The battery was dead. “Aggggggggh!” You’d think I would have gained some Karma points for helping out. Anyway, I found two frat guys to give us a jump start and had to teach them how to jump a car. (That was funny.) And we were off back to the hotel and I needed a nap!
The evening went pretty much without a hitch. I got everyone food and we watch Willy Wanka and the Chocolate Factory (the one with Gene Wilder). I took the kids to see a matinee of Pink Panther 2 and then went to Wal mart to get them coloring books. I lost one kid and had to have him paged. (I forgot to mention that there were complication and all four of us stayed in that hotel room another two days! Yippee!)They fought the entire time and I wasn’t sure if it was just being stuck in a small hotel room with these kids, not having a good nights sleep, or the sound of them fighting over who was more stupid, but I snapped. I lost it. What ever good karma I had been building up was gone in a few, stress relieving seconds. “OK, I’ve got a quarter; Colin your heads, Sam your tails and which ever one it lands on is the one I’m going to drown to set as an example for the other one! Do you understand?! I want you to fold your arms as we go out to the car and so help me the only sound I want to hear is you breathing!”
I can hear the gasps of disapproval from across the vast reaches of cyber space! Don't judge me. I was raveling! I snapped. I wanted to slam my head against a cement wall, jump off a cliff and light myself on fire. I'm not even exaggerating; not even a little...I would have rather enrolled myself into a fire walking for beginners class than hear another word from those two very sweet boys.
And the award for best babysitter goes to…
