Deborah- everyone is buckled in, right?

Greta- Daddy, do you have a peeenis?

Deborah- What?

Aaron- yes, Greta I do.

Sawyer- I have a peeenis, too!

Sawyer- and Gunnar has a peenis,  but Greta, YOU DON’T!!

Deborah glances at me and giggles like a schoolgirl…

First of all: no I did not join the patronage at the “european style pool.” but, may I say, vegas is still an input overload to this midwest, cornfed, midwestern boy. And they can keep it. But, if I had to spend 6 to 8 hrs in a small car with someone other than my wife- carl and Jessica have a good lead in the running.

I have known carl since around the time I met my wife. He still cracks me up on unexpected occasions and I would not brave any family gathering or most gatherings without him by my side. As for Jessica- wow, she gets on my last nerve! and yet, she seems like an older sister to me at times, which is weird since she is 3 yrs younger than me. She has a spiritual depth that is decades past her age. My kids adore her. so what do I do? My plan includes making fun of whatever she says on any occasion. We’ll see how it works…

.
I do get sappy sometimes family so here it is….

2)Afghan- a crochet’d version of a throw or blanket.

3)Vestibule- porch

So I plan on using these old-timey words to describe our things just to drive everyone else crazy.

But I was also contemplating the three items that would make my week…

1) more reasons to create numbered lists 

2) one of those 1970′s magnetized police mono strobes that you roll down your window and slap on the top of your car.

3) a car horn that replicates the “whoop, whoop” of a real cop car.

that is all except to give a shout out to 60 minutes for putting their program online. I will be removing my orthopedic shoes and lie down on my davenport, covered by my afghan, to listen to your program and maybe a rerun of Matlock as I survey the activity on my vestibule.

Let’s go back- From our upside down empty 5-gallon bucket chairs in the back of the powder blue ’78 cargo van I would hear a yell- “Hang on kids; just spotted a bungee cord on the side of I-35!”   and then we would roll around the cargo van floor like those vibrating football games from the eighties. 

Fast-forward to 2009 where I am driving my state of the art 2008 model truck, with 4000 miles and 20 inch rims up Westwood blvd, in West Los Angeles and I spot something a block away. Not just something, a something that is shiny and seems to have few scratches.  Looks like somebody got clipped and their mercury got it’s face taken off. 

Yes, a full Mercury bumper with intact grill was cast to the side of the road.

For a full 6 seconds, I was enamored with the possibilities of what I could do with that front-of-a-car.  Mount it on the wall like a moose head? Hook up the headlamps and illuminate my fooseball table? at the very least sell it to a scavenge yard…

Then I caught myself; how in the world would I explain my bringing home a late model Mercury front grill and storing it in my garage? As much as I wanted that free-thing-on-the-side-of-the-road, it wasn’t worth justifying. 

Thanks dad for forever giving me the pack rat gene. If only you knew how much stuff from my own alley I have re-owned, only to be discarded a year later…

But what if that bumper and grill assembly was a Buick? or even worse, a Mercedes?

 On the top landing she farted on my forearm. And then pronounced proudly: “I pooty noised, daddy!”

 My plan is to commit this to long term memory and then suddenly resurrect  this story  in front of her teenage friends when she’s 14. Hopefully there is a heartthrob teen boy in the crowd. Demeaning and embarrasing your kids are what dad’s are for, and I can’t wait for them to really care.