making your day suck 9% to 13.25% less, courtesy of PS22

WTF ~ No. 3

Nike believes in miracles, like Jesus rising from the dead and a public that doesn't revel in sex scandals, because it released this commercial of Tiger's deceased father talking to him.

Secret Instructions

Not me, on vacation.

Our family recently had a real family time of it on our family vacation.  Which is to say, for my spouse and me, it was not vacation.  At least, not as Merriam-Webster's defines it:
va·ca·tion (vā kā′s̸hən, və-)
Date: 14th century *
1 : a respite or a time of respite from something : intermission
2 a : a scheduled period during which activity (as of a court or school) is suspended b : a period of exemption from work granted to an employee

It's definitionally impossible to take a vacation away from being parents when you bring a 3 and 6 year old.  There is no respite or intermission.  The back issues of the Sunday New York Times I lugged, a sign of foolish hope, were promptly appropriated by our offspring, disassembled, folded at confusing angles and re-named "secret instructions".  A dark harbinger, the very act compactly illustrates what happened to my husband and me on our week's vacation:  it was appropriated, disassembled, took on several confusing angles and finally, renamed -- but no longer a secret from us, and instructive, indeed.

On day 2, laboring under the impression our family was like everyone else, we went to the lovely outdoor restaurant at the hotel for dinner.  But I was missing my spouse for this particular dinner, so I was outnumbered.  And my foe are a calculated couple, deftly exploiting every weakness - in this case us being in a nice public place and my being alone.

Things started off squarely enough.  The 6 year old (NKA Master of Disaster, or MoD) asked his little sister to wear his new "mood-color" charm to see "what kind of wish the charm says she should make".

Master of Disaster: "Hold it up on your forehead and see what color it turns....Oh! It turned purple! Purple! Your second favorite color! Purple means you get to make a wish for your family and friends! Do it! Do it now!"

As his excitement builds MoD's voice has gone up 10 decibles and the families and couples around us are intruiged.  The three year old, always looking for an opportunity to get excited, clenches her fists up to her cheeks, closes her eyes, grits her teeth and begins to shake in her wishfulness.

MoD: "Its not enough! Harder! Wish harder!"

The three year old (AKA Little Suge, for her gansta devotion to all things sugar) intensifies her efforts, nearly shaking off her chair.  She looks painfully constipated.  Finally, she releases her pose and grins wide.


A graphic depiction of my sweet daughter, Little Suge.

MoD, ignoring my pleas to lower his voice: "What was it?  What did you wish for?  Oh - you're not supposed to tell me, but it's supposed to be for your family and friends, not for yourself.  So I wish I knew.  Was it for me?  Because my birthday is on Thursday.  So I should get the wish!  I need a wish, you know.  I hope you wished for me,  cuz I know what I need.  I NEED TO STOP PEEING MY BED.  That what the wish should be for.  To STOP ME FROM PEEING MY BED."

Little Suge nods, likely having forgotten altogether what she wished for.  But everyone else around us seems to be paying amused attention.

And on that note, I preemptively decide to take both of them to the bathroom, now, before our food arrives.  Since the bathroom is a trek and an ordeal, and because the MoD has a urinary trigger that is set off whenever a plate of prepared food is first set in front of him.   We go, and upon return we see our entrees being set out.  After situating the kids, cutting food, laying out napkins and pushing in chairs, I entertain the first bite of a really delicious piece of roasted salmon with olives and tomatoes. 

"I needta go pott-tay."  It's Little Suge.  The salmon bite slightly sticks in my lower throat. 

After appropriately threatening the MoD not to dare leave his seat, I take Little Suge to the restroom.  The salmon has cooled slightly, but the sauce still has warmth and the flavor is really good.  I get a second bite in, a third, and the chenin blanc I ordered totally hits the spot as a chaser.  MoD suddenly looks up, eyes blazing, and shouts:

"SHE JUST WHISPERED THE WORD FUCK!"  

The sounds of silverware wafting around us abruptly halt.

~A short history of fuck~
Not a week ago MoD believed he invented the word fuck.  This came out as he laughingly assigned a new nickname to my father during their play, "I will call you Mr. Fuck."  
Me:  "What!"
MoD: "What?"
Me: "What did you say!"
MoD, proud of himself: "Fuck!"
Me:  "What.  Did.  You.  Just.  Say?!!"
MoD, not getting it: "Fuck!"
Me: "WHA - "  Little Suge cuts me off.
Little Suge: "Fuck, fuck, fuck.  He said fuck, Silly!"
After the frenzy that invariably followed, it really was the case that upon a rhyming language game he plays, he invented fuck and rather liked it.  We explained it was horrible, forbidden, never again, yadda yadda. 

And it was.  Until Day 1 of our vacation.  At the child-and-mother-filled hotel pool, new little vacation friends began discussing the "worst thing you can do."
Vacation friend 1:  "The worst thing you can do is not tell your Mom and Dad the truth."
Little Suge: "Nuh-hun.  The worst thing you can do is litter." 
This comes out as "litt-tah." She has a distinct Jersey accent.  We don't know how.
MoD, shouting triumphantly from halfway across the pool: "No way.  The worst thing you can do is say FUCK!" 
We lost our vacation friends after that.
~We now return you to our regularly scheduled trainwreck.~

As the last consonant dies down I've already got his chin in a vise grip and I'm whispering murderously into his mouth.  I'm in the bad mother vortex.  If I make a scene, I'm making it worse for everyone to witness.  If I don't make a scene, I condone this display.  And anyway, fuck's already out there, so I've already lost.  After promising that I will wash his mouth out with soap as soon as we get back to the room, I sink back and take my fourth bite of salmon, defeated. 

"I gotta go potty." It's the MoD.  He at least has the good sense to sound a little sheepish.  And he hasn't even eaten a single bite of pizza yet.  I can't leave Little Suge by herself, so we all go.  The third time in less than 10 minutes.  

When we get back, the sauce on the salmon has congealed.  I swallow a third of my wine in one go and try to put myself back together.  The MoD immediately starts to wriggle in his chair.

"My stomach feels weird.  I think I'm going to throw up.  I think - no - I am, I am going to throw up.  I don't feel good.  I need to leave.  Yes, I need to throw up!  I'm going to throw up! I feel sick! Really, really sick!"

And that crackle in the air is the restlessness from the other patrons that they've had enough of our sideshow.   It crossed over from amusing to embarrassing to white trash.  We probably don't get out much, muses the subliminal crackle.  Even the good-natured single lady with her novel and her appetizer and her wine has passed from "I empathize" to "You-and-I-are-nothing-alike."

But I know the MoD, and I know he's not sick, definitely not throw-up sick.  I feel like I've somehow triggered a sleeper cell:  it's ephermeral, deadly, hard to identify and even harder to thwart.  I'm working in unfamiliar terrain, I'm down a General, and I don't have the right maps to respond to this turn in strategy.  But I know it IS one.

So I persist. "Mellow out, MoD.  Just eat what you want, and let Mommy finish her food.  Mommy needs to eat.  Enjoy yourself." 

I should have never uttered the first two, nor the last two words of this speech.  Its not taken as friendly advice; it's taken as a directive.  And the MoD just simply seemed unable to take directives this evening.

"No! No, Mommy.  You don't understand.  I'm going to throw up at the table.  I am. My stomach feels weird. It's all weird and its going to throw up right here, at the table.  I need to go back! I need to leave! I, I, I, I, I, I, I'm SICK."

I had a vision of that bomb chocolate cake with a warm liquid chocolate center.  It's really all I could think of for a split second.  The kind of thing you order when you go out to restaurants.  On vacation. I clung to it.  I immediately grabbed the waitress, motioned to the kids, asked her to have room service send over one of those, siphoned my wine and advised the waitress to bring the remainder of Little Suge's dinner along with my dessert.   Carrying her, kicking and crying, MoD dramatically heaving breaths and clutching his stomach, we exit.

Three minutes later, we're back at the room.  MoD immediately heads over to his new Lego toy (it's his birthday on Thursday you know) and starts to play with it. 

"You said you were sick."


"I'm starting to feel better now."


"Nuh-uh.  No way.  Now you get in that bathroom and BE sick. You insisted you were going to throw up.  Get in that bathroom and if you don't have to throw up then you sit down on the toilet and don't you get up til I say."


"Can I take my Lego?"


"NO!"

He skirts by me, but not before grabbing his Nintendo DS. 

"No DS! You're too sick for DS!"


"But I'm starting to feel better now. Its weird. I just...feel better." 

He's genuinely convincing.  Like I'll believe the miracle of his recovery.  Like I believed he was ever really sick in the first place.

And when that warm chocolate liquid cake showed up with the vanilla ice cream?  I let him out of the bathroom.  I sat Little Suge on my lap and fed her bites and he watched on.  The vacation dessert disappeared right in front of him without an offer to share coming his way.  I have my own set of secret instructions, you see. 

It was the one successful offensive in an otherwise lost battle.