About 1/2 A Bubble Off

Manchild and I picked up Kidlet # 2 from school one day. Of course, being the idiotic, imbecilic (is that a real word – it is if you’re US) brats that we are we decided to have a little fun.

Manchild decided to put on his really big cop cowboy hat and his dark cop sunglasses (because it looked so super cool while we were sitting in his teeny tiny car), so that's the first thing that made kidlet cringe. Then we decided to tune the radio to an exciting radio station. You see, the radio in Mr. Man's car only has one volume setting...LOUD. Extremely loud. So naturally, we were obligated to pick the most obnoxious music we could find to play on his extremely loud radio, which we did while all 4 windows were rolled down. Are you getting the picture?

There we sat, in a goofy little car with the windows rolled down - music (complete with lots of accordions, trumpets, yelling and rapidly spoken foreign languages) blaring, Manchild decked out in his cowboy hat and cop sunglasses - staring without any emotion at all on his face, at any kid who walked past and me sitting in the drivers seat cackling like a loon.

To get the complete picture you have to know that we were picking kidlet up from a middle school where all of the kids are awkward and hate being seen with their parents. So it was just as funny to stare at the kids walking past who were trying to look like they weren't looking at us, as it was to see how quickly kidlet could make it to the car without anyone noticing. Since the radio was so loud, we had to yell to be heard so everyone in the carpool lane heard us greet our kid (another offense).

Let me tell you, my offspring was absolutely mortified. She tried ducking down into the back seat but most of the damage had already been done. So she did the best thing she could think of...she dug her fingernails into our arms and screamed for us to turn off the radio. I finally did so because I do have a teeny shred of compassion and I do remember back to the stone ages when my mom would hot rod the dinosaur in the dinosauras lane when I was in school. I remember being embarrassed! But I have to admit...I get why Mama made old Steggysaury kick up extra dirt and peel out when she took off. Because it's funny to watch your kid try to become invisible and try to kill you without getting grounded.

For some reason, kidlet never wants Manchild and I both to pick her up from school. She begs us not to do it. I guess it's because when we pick her up together, we're usually in his dorky little car and not my super cool hot rod and the dorky car embarrasses her. So next time, we'll take my car. And we'll stand up through the sun roof with the music playing loudly and wave our arms and scream out her name so she'll be able to locate us easily. I might even wear a special outfit so I'll be more visible. I mean, I want to make it easy on the girl.