Bowling.
The concept of Valentine’s Day was very complicated this year. There were too many ‘cooks in the kitchen’ so to speak, and I decided that I wasn’t going to give this day to any person who I felt would misinterpret it for something — how do I say — special. My brother had class last night, so Carol and I took the kids bowling. Frankly, it was a great choice on my end.
We packed all the kids in the van and headed to the bowling alley. As we entered the parking lot, I noticed Carol was turning into a one way lane where there was a car driving towards us.
‘Car, you’re going the wrong way.‘
No response. So I repeat,
‘Car, you’re going the wrong way.‘
Carol finally responds,
‘Who, me?‘
Duh.
‘Of course, you!‘
She looks me straight in the face and says,
‘I’m the VAN — that’s the CAR!‘
Everyone (but Carol) starts cracking up. Umm, Car is Carol’s nickname… always has been! So funny.
Once we got inside, the first thing I noticed was a long table of food, set up buffet style. There was rice, adobo, lumpia, pancit, chips & salsa, and pink decorated cupcakes — your typical Daly City bowling alley, I guess. Well, minus the cupcakes. The kids ran straight to the arcade as though we didn’t physically pry them off the Wii an hour earlier. My nephew Steven jumps into one of those car-racing games and I’m watching him ‘drive’ just cringing because he recently got his driver’s license and I had let him borrow my car a few weeks ago. It sort of freaked me out, yet here I am at their house while he is out and about with my car on a Friday night. Sigh. Luckily, he’s going to church. I think.
We’d been hanging with the kids for the majority of the afternoon today. I swear, the conversations that take place when they don’t think we’re listening are so entertaining. We had Aaron (the 14-year-old artist), Allison (the 13-year-old pro “funky-fresh” athlete), Timmy (the 12-year-old video game master), Alyssa (the 7-year-old mini-ME), and Kayla (the 4-year-old polite police).
We were craving the best generic taco meat ever, so we headed to the Sizzler. First off, Allison went to get some soup. What better to go with her soup than some bread and butter, so she went back to get some? She returns to the table staring strangely at my plate. I watched her run back to the buffet and come back with butter — yellow butter this time. Apparently, she initially tried to butter her bread with whipped cream.
Shortly after, Timmy, Allison, and I were standing over the Taco/Nacho bar. Allison asked, ‘Can you believe that the Zoey 101 show isn’t going to be canceled?‘ Timmy and I were both shocked — we both said, ‘But she’s pregnant!!!‘ So I asked, ‘So are they just going to make her character in the show pregnant, too?‘ Timmy had it all figured out, though. ‘No, Auntie Gemma. They’re just gonna make her character fat.’ Wow. That’d be awesome.
Little Miss Kayla has been learning a lot about politeness in school. For the last few weeks, no one has been able to say anything that could possibly be seen as ‘negative’. You can’t show her anger, annoyance, frustration, NOTHING. In the van, she randomly said, You guys, you can’t say ‘I like big butts and I cannot lie’!!
The longer I sit here and write, the more things I remember, but all good things must come to an end. Plus, I need to spend some quality time with my milk-carton boyfriend. (It’s an inside joke and I’m sure the only ones laughing are the kids who were standing around me as I was typing.)
My goal this week is to say to at least one person, Shut up your nose!
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