Big Ugly Man Doll

So there we were earlier this school year, driving – again – to school.  You wouldn’t think a lot could happen on a drive like this, because it’s not yet 8 in the morning and we’re only driving 5 blocks away.  You would be wrong. 

For those of you scoring at home, “not yet 8 in the morning” translates to “Number One Son has been up for at least two hours playing games and working himself into a really good crazy.  I mean, there’s “just woke up” crazy, which most of us go through to varying degrees, and there’s “ohmygodI’mlate” crazy, and we all know what that’s like.  What you may not be familiar with, however, is the “slam down whatever food I can find or open and play video games until everyone else wakes up” crazy, which really gets him chuffed into a solid gonzo some days.  An hour later, we’re up and giving him his meds.  In the face of a solid windmill-armed dervish, the chances those medications have of kicking in before he goes to school are pretty much the same odds the 3rd Grade pet hamster has in a volcano – to wit, not much. 

But once in a while, he finds his coping mechanisms and they work.  For a change, it wasn’t Number One Son screaming arterial homicide out the car window for 5 straight blocks – he leveraged his skills in transference and it was the Reigning Queen of Pink doing the shouting.  In her defense, when she does it it’s not called shouting, it’s called “addressing her subjects.” 

It’s summer, the windows are open, and she sees her friends walking to school.  One of these friends is named, believe it or not, Jack.  Can you see this coming yet?

At the top of her royal lungs, head halfway out the open window, “HI JACK!!!  HI JACK!!!”

You know, we live in the shadow of the nation’s capitol.  People really do turn and look when they hear that.  Some of them are armed. 

We got through the school’s tightened security system and the Stop Sign of Death, and I let them out.  She was still talking about having seen Jack walking to school.  Number One Son, having successfully transferred the crazy this morning, looked at her as they were getting out of the car and, in true older brother fashion, said the one thing most calculated to infuriate her. 

“He didn’t hear you, you know.”

But baby, everyone else did!

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