AZ JazzyJ
<font color=teal>The Talented One<br><font color=p
- Joined
- Dec 6, 2000
- Messages
- 1,945
Ok, so sometimes things in my life go just a little hay wire and don't work out exactly as planned. Case in point, last month Trina was to lead a group of young women ages 12-17 into the backwoods of Arizona for a week of camping. This meant that she would be leaving me in charge of Whitney (age 9) and Dakota (age 6 going on 42). She busily began packing for camp while I sat at the computer "doing whatever it is I do on that thing for 16 hours a day" (those were Trina's words, not mine. I mean after all, I KNOW what I do for 16 hours a day on the computer, I look up baseball stuff, shop at eBay, and reply to SPAM e-mail (hey, if they didn't want me to reply, they shouldn't have sent me a message in the first place). So anyway, Trina gets herself read for camp and all the time she is lecturing me on what I need to do while she is gone, "you need to take some time off from work because you need to be with the kids... And Luis Gonzalez is standing on third with his 14th extra base hit of the season... you need to make sure the kids eat... there's a long fly ball to left field, Bonds on the warning track makes the catch... you get all that?" I nodded wondering if the Diamondbacks would ever score another run. Somehow though, Trina didn't think I was paying attention so she repeated the instructions to Dakota so someone had the details. So off she went to camp leaving a poor defenseless boy at home with only Dakota to help him. We did ok for the first night but come Saturday morning, Dakota and I awoke to find we had no food in the house. Whitney had seen this coming and she went to a friend's house to sleep over. After digging through dirty laundry to find stuff that wasn't TOO dirty, we got dressed and went to the store. In the same shopping center as the grocery store was a Hallmark store. I suddenly came to the realization that it was Ornament Premier week-end and that meant one thing, free food. Dakota and I rushed into the store and while the ladies were fighting over ornaments, we ran to the back of the store for free juice and donut holes. We grabbed some to eat and put a few in our pockets for later (Dakota got greedy and thought about putting a glass of juice in his pocket but I stopped him, see I am a good father). As we started to walk out of the store looking like chipmunks storing nuts in our cheeks, a Hallmark employee stopped us and asked if we would enter their ornament drawing. Feeling kind of guilty I agreed and the two of us started filling out forms. There were some kind of trivia questions on the bottom so I did the obvious thing, I called Lauri to ask for the answers. After entering the drawing, we left but the hunger remained. Instead of then going to the grocery store, we figured there were at least 3 more Hallmark stores in the area we could hit. For the next 3 hours we went from Hallmark to Hallmark sampling their food and entering their drawings (hey, I am cool with filling out a form for free food). When we had completed our Hallmark trek, we were full and still had grocery money. Dakota offered a suggestion, maybe we could use the grocery money to get a new video game. Worked for me so we went to the electronics store and I allowed him to pick one game. I knew he liked racing games and cars so when he brought me something called GTA, I figured that was some no-name knock-off of Pontiac's GTO brand. I looked at the box and there was a rating of M on it so I knew it was the Male version versus the Female one. We paid for it and went home. Dakota loaded it on the computer and I went down to watch the ballgame. At about the 5th inning he came down for a drink. I asked him how it was going, he said he was bummed because he was still in jail. In jail?!?! It was about that time I grabbed the box to find out that GTA stands for Grand Theft Auto and the M was Mature audiences, not male. This was bad so I did the most responsible thing I could think of, I taught him how to get out of jail and run from the police. I also made him do a pinky swear that we would never discuss this game when mom was around. Content with that, I went back to the game and Dakota worked his way through level 2.
On Monday, Trina returned home from camp to find Dakota camped in front of the computer and me at the office. I guess I was supposed to pick her up but forgot. I did leave Ashley at home with the kids so it wasn't like they were running around unsupervised. By the time I got home though, Trina seemed less than happy to see me. During her lecture on responsible parenting, the phone rang. I explained it may be Commissioner Gordon and I might be needed at police headquarters and that I either had to take this call or go outside and look for the bat signal. Before she could answer, I grabbed the phone. It was somebody named Diane Hallmark or something like that. I won an ornament at their premier. Well that was weird. I hung up the phone and Trina continued with the lecture. Twenty minutes later, that Diane Hallmark lady called again. This time she said that Dakota won an ornament. I again hung up the phone so Trina could resume her dissertation. Within 5 minutes the phone rang again, this time it was Diane's sister Millie Hallmark calling to say I won an ornament. This was getting kind of weird since we only went to 4 Hallmark stores. The stores were going to close pretty soon so I decided I better go get the prizes. Trina wasn't finished yet so she went along to continue the lecture. While we were in the car, my cell phone rang. This time it was Kathy Hallmark asking if I would come in and pick up an ornament that I won in a drawing. Trina then began to ask a lot of questions that she had no business asking like why all these women were calling and why I had gone to so many Hallmark stores. I frantically was working the radio to try and find some relief. The badgering continued the whole time we were gone and finally ended as I entered the driveway to our house. I figured I was finally over this when we got in the house and Dakota ran up to me all excited that the tips I gave him for escaping from jail and stealing a police car worked and he got away! That is about the last thing I remember from that night, the rest is kind of a blur.
Jeff
On Monday, Trina returned home from camp to find Dakota camped in front of the computer and me at the office. I guess I was supposed to pick her up but forgot. I did leave Ashley at home with the kids so it wasn't like they were running around unsupervised. By the time I got home though, Trina seemed less than happy to see me. During her lecture on responsible parenting, the phone rang. I explained it may be Commissioner Gordon and I might be needed at police headquarters and that I either had to take this call or go outside and look for the bat signal. Before she could answer, I grabbed the phone. It was somebody named Diane Hallmark or something like that. I won an ornament at their premier. Well that was weird. I hung up the phone and Trina continued with the lecture. Twenty minutes later, that Diane Hallmark lady called again. This time she said that Dakota won an ornament. I again hung up the phone so Trina could resume her dissertation. Within 5 minutes the phone rang again, this time it was Diane's sister Millie Hallmark calling to say I won an ornament. This was getting kind of weird since we only went to 4 Hallmark stores. The stores were going to close pretty soon so I decided I better go get the prizes. Trina wasn't finished yet so she went along to continue the lecture. While we were in the car, my cell phone rang. This time it was Kathy Hallmark asking if I would come in and pick up an ornament that I won in a drawing. Trina then began to ask a lot of questions that she had no business asking like why all these women were calling and why I had gone to so many Hallmark stores. I frantically was working the radio to try and find some relief. The badgering continued the whole time we were gone and finally ended as I entered the driveway to our house. I figured I was finally over this when we got in the house and Dakota ran up to me all excited that the tips I gave him for escaping from jail and stealing a police car worked and he got away! That is about the last thing I remember from that night, the rest is kind of a blur.
Jeff
