Typical Fridays start with :Get up, basketball practice.
Followed by Caitlyn: Can I stay at Oh-My's?
Me: call her
Caitlyn: She said yes and that the boys said they are going to clean out her barn today!
Oh, I had forgotten. No big deal. I bring the boys to Mom's after practice. Caitlyn is basking, being the center of grand parental attention. The boys don boots and, reluctantly, coats and stomp out to the barn with Pop-pop.
I am adamant that my parents not pay the children for their efforts. In the past, the kids have been paid well above what I thought they did. They completely work their grandparents, who melt and smile at them and hand over a fistful of bills.
Steve and I are trying to establish a new fact with the kids. You are part of a family, help out. So far there are mixed results, but as I figure it, I have three sons who are reaching the right age for me never to have to take out trash, rake a yard or mow grass ever again. We are still having some issues on the concept of "hang up your own laundry", but it is slowly taking effect.
Pop-pop and Oh-My (my parents) are generous to a fault with the kids. Pop-pop more than Oh-My. Pop-pop will let them do what ever they want, and they know it. Oh-My follows the basics of mother-instinct-safety guidelines and first level home ownership (what do you mean I can't walk around the house in barn boots?).
So the new agreement that my kids have managed to swindle out of their grandparents is very very elemental: Will work for food.
The first time the boys cleaned out the barn, it was ice cream all around. This seemed to fit. My parents have two retired horses that are more lawn ornaments than horses. They do the usual horse things, but there are only the two of them, so it isn't as if the boys are cleaning out a dairy (and living near many dairies, I can say, thanks, but no thanks.).
This time the boys were promised lunch. At Burger King. The barn crew trudged out and with the guidance of the work foreman (Pop-pop) the finished in record time. They also stank. I am used to horse smells. We have 2.5, so it isn't as if that is a foreign smell. There is just something about that particular barn that produces the sourest of smells.
This is why, when we got to Burger King, Oh-My and I had the seating with Caitlyn and Tom-tom (my grandfather) and the boys and their boss got a booth all to themselves.
The meal started with a selection of errors that generally only happen to me or Lucille Ball. The ketch up dispenser was busted (hello? Can you say: crisis?) and then, when I was getting the drinks filled up, I pushed the button for Sprite and it wouldn't stop. I pulled my cup and pushed the button again.
The frothy drink continued to gush. I called out to any employee, but that ketchup dispenser was really absorbing their attention. I gave it some half hearted slaps. Nope. A few other customers were now giving me a wide berth.
Finally, I squinted my eyes and treated it like a home appliance. I grabbed the box over the nozzle and wrenched it upwards forcefully. Silence. It stopped. I capped the cup and told the next person in line to avoid that Sprite fountain. They just looked at me a bit wide eyed....maybe I had done my ninja yell when I fixed it? Who knows.
Our meal was ready by now and I passed food out to the starving masses. After all, it had only been two hours since their last feeding, I was obviously withholding food from them. I finally sat down with mom, Caitlyn and Grandpa.
We put Caitlyn and Grandpa on one side, closer to the boy and their aroma, and Mom and I sat on the booth where the bench connected to the bench of the booth behind us.
Mistake
You see, behind mom and myself were three young ladies of about college age. They had heavily made up faces and hair. They were wearing the latest in animal print clothing and had finger nails that had never ever snaked a drain or scrubbed a floor. Their jewelry was sparkling and they painted the whole picture of young people who have nothing to do.
This didn't really bother me at first. Hey, I was young with no responsibility once. No problem. Then the shaking started.
I guess at first I noticed my drink in my hand vibrating, as if a T-rex had caused an impact tremor. Of course, there are no dinosaurs in Portales. But I looked around to be sure.
One of the young ladies was chatting away on a cell phone. I, personally, will not carry on a conversation on a phone in so public a setting. The entire world can hear you. I had mentally tuned this conversation out after the first high pitched, "NO WAY!". But there she sat, engaged in an animated conversation, with her legs crossed, rapidly bouncing the one leg, which then in turn transferred it's kinetic energy to the entire booth.
Mom and I exchanged glances. It was going to be one of those meals.
Mom and I are used to things like this. We both seem to be cosmic magnets for rude customers, out of control teens and malfunctioning equipment.
We continued to eat when the bench started moving again, vigorously. It was like trying to eat a meal while sprawled on one of those old hotel beds that had the "magic fingers massaging action". If I focused too closely, the edges of my food blurred with the vibrations.
Another shared glance.
Caitlyn, using a new found female radar, realized that there was communication she wasn't privy to. Her radar kicked into high gear when she caught another shared look.
"What?"
"I'll tell you later." She dared to give me a dirty look for putting her off and I informed her that every tween show that had children sassing to adults was now off the menu. We had a lively discussion of what she could watch. We ended up with most things on Discovery, TLC, History and the Food Network.
Now the bench began to actually jiggle. I missed when I went to take a sip from my straw. The movement had my aim off by inches. I am not sure what the girls were doing at this point, but I was starting to feel ever so slightly sea sick.
I hurried up Caitlyn (just how long can she make one ice cream cone last?) so that we could leave.
We ended up leaving first. The movement in the booth was likely to continue for the next unsuspecting customers. The girls were having an animated conversation and I am guessing that multiple hand gestures were part of their language, because the motion on the booth was intense.
Walking to the door, I hurried the boys to the car and thanked Mom profusely for my dinner cruise.
And how was your day?
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