Join Me in Snarkville

…until I was hit by the felon* and completely sidetracked with a discussion of arrests and policeladies.

Ok, back to my more boring life again.  On Friday**, I kept Duke out of school.  We talked about how playing hookey wasn’t something I was going to allow since I value an education, but since this was pre-school and one day shouldn’t affect his whole ivy league college application, we were going to do it.

After 2 weeks away, it was most assuredly time for me to have some Mama/Duke time.  So, I hatched this little plan, we’d stay home from school and I’d take him somewhere fun.  At this point as I’m coming up with awesome ideas like “We could go to Target or the pet store or run a few errands I’ve been meaning to do…”  ’cause that sounds like fun right?  After all, there is NO way I’m taking him to the land of the freak mouse with bad pizza (sidenote: how my parents ever tolerated it I have no idea — but frankly my only childhood memories of the place is the SkeeBall and I firmly believe that Duke can have SkeeBall elsewhere.)  Anyway, as I’m sorting through all the fun possibilities for our day together, Prince pipes up and says, “You know, he’s been asking to ride a school bus since the day you left, maybe you could take him on the bus.”

Great idea, sweetheart.  Great idea, except when you factor in my serious personal hatred of the bus and the thought of exposing my son to the bus germs gives me a slight case of the hives — but yeah, sure, no problem.  I went through the stages of grief:

Denial: “No, I don’t have to do the bus.  We will find something even better to do, like maybe weeding the lawn, that’s fun right?”

Anger: “Why do *I* have to take the bus. *YOU* had him for two weeks, you couldn’t have found time to ride the bus with him?”

Bargaining: “Ok, I’ll take the bus, but you have to help me find the least painful route and I don’t have to hear another word about being gone for 2 weeks EVER, deal?”

Depression: “I don’t want to go.”

Acceptance: “Here’s the $1.10, sir.  Thank you so much.”

The upshot of the whole experience is that neither Duke nor I got Ebola.  We both got to sit down — which was a plus, I think.  He told nearly everyone to “Watch Step” which makes him happy.  He had a blast riding the bus and I actually didn’t hate it as much as I expected (see, I can grow).

However, I have one question — how is it possible that he talk about wanting to do something for two STRAIGHT weeks — nearly non-stop with the talking about it, and then once we did it not mention it again?  He didn’t even tell Prince about his bus experience when Prince got home that evening.  It is like he crossed it off his mental to-do list and moved on.  What’s up with that?

*Understanding as we all do that in THIS country (one I’m pretty sure the guy who hit is not in legally, but still) we consider people innocent until proven guilty; so while I do not *KNOW* that he was a felon, I like to think that we (and by we, I totally mean, me) took down a menace to soceity and not someone who didn’t pay a parking ticket, k?

** wow, remember Friday?  It was like a whole week ago and seems like another lifetime — I can’t believe how time flies.