Good times!

I hope you all had a great Memorial Day weekend.  I sure did! It all started with multiple baseball games, double headers and hours on the ballfield. But hey, that’s all fun, right? Sure it is, especially when you have to work the snack bar inbetween the games that your own kid is playing in. FUN. I really like when a game ends, and there’s a million people who decide all at once that they want a hot dog and a soda and wait, no, make that a Gatorade, and actually we need two hotdogs and how much are the chips? and do you have any candy? And I hope you don’t mind breaking a fifty, it’s all I could get at the ATM. Good times! It’s also fun when the drinks sell out before you can fill the cooler with the next batch so they’re mostly warm and everyone is looking for something icy cold because it’s a thousand degrees out and they start returning things. Who the hell ever heard of anyone returning anything at a baseball game snack bar? I mean we’re not at Yankee Stadium! Everything is a dollar!

But I had so much fun working the snack bar and then watching my kid’s team lose every game, I decided to top it all off with a school project. You know the kind: the one that an annoying teacher assigns over a holiday weekend just to stick it to you. This might be the same teacher who has mocked you, the parent, in the classroom to the other kids, as if he was on stage at an LA comedy club. You call the principal to complain, and instead of an apology, you get stuck helping your kid and the rest of his project group make a Leaning Tower of Pisa out of cake. Which is FUN, don’t get me wrong, I was sore tired of watching baseball, and I did not want to go to the beach and salvage some of the beautiful day, and I did not want to go to the barbecue we were invited to, I didn’t even want to have a margarita! I really wanted to stay at home, and put the oven on in my hot kitchen, (I have forbidden Maverick to put on the air conditioner, what with two college tuition bills sitting in my mailbox that I refuse to bring in the house) and supervise four 13-year-old boys baking cakes and assembling leaning towers. Don’t be jealous. Really.

Now I know what you’re saying, “D. Parker, what kind of awful teacher gives such a stupid project on a holiday weekend?” and I say in response, “What do you think? A math teacher!” because clearly you understand how the baking and assembling of cakes is a super way to learn about math. (In fact, I heard that The Cake Boss was a mathematician teaching at Harvard before he opened his bakery.) It’s also a good way to learn about baking, and fire safety, and home economics, and domestic skills like what kind of cleansing products are safe for marble counters and which will leave pitted marks. Imagine a math teacher that is so caring, so devoted and dedicated that he wants your kid to learn all those important skills and because he doesn’t have time every single weekday for two hours in the classroom, makes sure that they can learn them on my time! What a special guy. I don’t know if you can tell what a fan I really am.

I was extra excited when Charles told me he needed colored icing: green and black. Nice! Of course when there was none to be found at the four supermarkets I ran to, getting two dings in my new car in the process, I knew we’d have to make it with food coloring, or food “dye,” as it should be called, or drop the “food” part from it entirely because I have learned (see, there you go, even I’m learning something from this project!) that it is pretty darn good at dyeing all sorts of things, dog fur, and clothing notwithstanding. But don’t worry about my new white jeans that I finally got back from the tailor in time for the big weekend, now I have something to throw in the bag of clothes for the charity pickup! Along with Charlie’s new shorts and his baseball jersey! Oh, wait, I can’t give away his baseball jersey…well, at least I’ll be able to pick him out on the field.

Well the whole thing didn’t take more than most of the day, and I’m happy to report that I was the only one who got burned taking cake out of the oven, because Charlie was distracted by an important text from the seventh grade “it” girl, and handed me a dishtowel instead of a pot holder. But really, when the “it” girl wants you to know that she really likes your new haircut, don’t worry about your mother burning the hands that used to wipe your ass, please go ahead and text her back! It’s not like I only have two hands. Oh, wait, I do only have two, it just seems like there are more.

Of course it was all worth it to spend that extra quality time with my teenage son and his friends that know lots and lots of jokes about penises, and not that much about manners and cleaning up after themselves. I didn’t mind at all that I didn’t get any “me” time, especially because I knew I had a lot of “me” time scheduled for the next day in the way of a mammogram, a pap smear and a dental appointment. I know, I know, I can be so selfish. But I ask you, will the fun never end?