Big Ugly Man Doll

Just when you think you can’t find another use for your kids, I heard this from my friend a few days ago:

It’s always a challenge to live with a high-powered, high-functioning ADHD-type in your life, but sometimes these people can be useful to have around!

For example, I got pulled over, I assume for speeding, the other day. When the police officer came up to my car, I rolled down the window. Before either of us could say anything, the Very Noisy Six-Year-Old in the back started.

I use the term started because there’s no other way to describe what he does.

“Is that a real gun? Does it have real bullets? Have you killed people? Can I watch you shoot something? Are you really a policeman? Do you have a badge? Are you the same policeman who came to my school? Is that a real gun? Are you going to shoot my Daddy? Can I watch you shoot something? Do you have a badge?”

The poor cop is just standing there, mouth open, as he listens to the machine-gun questions coming at full volume from the back seat, peppering him with interogatives like a pillbox laying down cover fire in the battle of Verdun. I gave him my best “please shoot me” look.

“You can go. Uh, try to slow it down a little. But, um, you can just go.”

I was tempted at this point to say something like, “No, I think I want to see you shoot something first.”

The VN six-year-old got an ice cream cone, and he doesn’t even know why. I might tell him, when he’s older, and if I ever get a word in.

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This morning my wife alerted me to the following events: http://www.wtopnews.com/?nid=25&sid=1167803

From the article: They came, they auditioned and now Metro is ready to roll out its first ever group of Metro Performers. The first group will appear … at the Dupont Circle Station. It is a duet that will be hand dancing. “Two people come together and there’s a role for one person and a role for another and they get out there and do their thing,” says Lisa Richards with the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities. “The most important thing for hand dancing is that it is partner dancing. We don’t see a lot of that in our contemporary clubs.”

I should say not. This sounds like a tough gig.

Now, I can just see explaining to the cop that, no, really, I was being paid by Metro to hand dance with my partner in front of the Dupont Circle Station. “You see, officer, two people come together and there’s a role for one person and a role for another and they get out there and do their thing!”

“Right. Get in the car, longhair.”

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Today, walking between the train and my office, I saw the perfect woman. She was everything a man could ever, has ever wanted, in a member of the finer gender. Her face was a study in sculpted beauty, alabaster white with high cheekbones. The lines and the white of her face were paused only in her soft, full, ruby lips, and the burning eyes that I confess I did notsee, and I am merely extrapolating from the rest of her great beauty when I tell you of the burning eyes, bright grey; all framed by the most delicate feathered hair, ebon jet black, framing the contrast with her ivory features. She was of middle height, slim, yet curved and well endowed, and she walked with a firm stride and a knowing smile.

None of this is what made me notice her, what drew me to the conclusion that she was the perfect woman. That was her scent. I know that pheromones can affect a person, and that the sense of smell is the strongest, the most powerful of them all, and I tell you this was the perfect woman:

She smelled just like fried chicken.

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You want an example of an eclectic reading list? I was typing the other day and happened to glance at my own bookshelf, which you may not be surprised to hear runs about 1500 books, floor to ceiling and covering the area between the door and the far wall. (Some would call this a library; I call it a good start.) Anyway, glancing at it haphazardly can lead to unusual results. Today I observed, sitting side by side by side, the following five books, stacked in this order: The Worst Case Scenario Survival handbook, Lord of the Flies, The Incredible Journey, Crockery Cookery, and “How Babies Are Made”. No matter what order you read these in, you’re in for a rough ride there, pardner.

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It’s really hard to keep bragging about the high quality of the school system when you have to drive around some of the crosswalks around here.

So there I was, later than usual, dropping my little darling off at school after a hurried breakfast of coffee and toast. Yes, this is how 2nd Grade prepares you for life – running late and gulping your coffee. I love this kid. She still thinks it’s cool when I shut her door by slamming the car into gear and squealing the tires.

We get to school, making the left into the lot, and I notice a group of kids stumbling toward the crosswalk. I stop, because A) I notice there’s no border patrol on the corner, B) the crossing guard is too busy talking to someone on the other side of the street to notice the kids or my car, and C) I have three kids, and I know that all children are crazy. To my mild surprise, the children stop anyway. The crossing guard becomes aware of the kids and my car at the same time and literally jumps, suddenly thrusting her stop sign at me as though the force of her “stop” would lend weight to her side of the argument had I been doing 50 miles an hour. Since I had been at a full and complete stop for nearly 30 seconds, this seemed wasted effort.

The children are dutifully crossed, the crossing guard in Alert Code Yellow and the Stop sign itself in high dudgeon. I noticed two more kids, boys this time, walking toward the corner on my right, having been alerted to this fact by my darling in the backseat who is shouting hellos and greetings to them, disregarding the closed window. She does this with the television, too – we’re thinking of getting her tested.

Ah! The crossing guard spies the approaching boys and goes into Alert Code Orange. The Stop sign is now raised slightly above her head, as though to smite my evil vehicle with the holy fire of Stop should it move even an inch. I’m not going to move, since by having three kids I have learned not only that all children are crazy, but that little boys are *really* crazy. True to form, the boys are oblivious to the crossing guard, the car, the weather, and the child in the back of my car yelling at them through the closed window, and start out into the crosswalk.

Now, this crosswalk is about 40 feet across. I’m on the right, in a car that is maybe 6 feet wide, probably not that much. Once the boys have passed my car, and the crossing guard with her Stop Sign Of Death, it is safe for me to continue. There are no other kids in sight. I’m watching the crossing guard, waiting for her to lower the SSoD, but she’s focused her laser vision on the walking backpacks, which is what the boys look like from this side. At 30 feet away, I couldn’t hit them with a pistol, never mind with my car.

Homicide is obviously high on my list of things to do, though, because the crossing guard is certain that if she lowers the SSoD an instant before the boys are accepted into the welcoming arms of the other side of the street, I will immediately cause my car to violate all known rules of physics by jumping up on two wheels, turning 90 degrees, and reaching relativistic speeds just to crush these walking backpacks under the iron tread of my wicked tires.

After all, Death is why I came here today.

Oh, no, wait. I came to drop off my kid at school. After – and only after – the auto-ambulating backpacks have crested the opposite curb, more than 50 feet from the clear and present danger of my pimped-up Subaru, does the intrepid crossing guard lower the SSoD, force herself into Alert Code Mauve, and let me pass. As I do, she gives me a wave I’m sure I’ve seen before.

Oh, yes, that’s it…

“Ding, fries are done!”

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