7 : 272 : 12 : 4
It was about mid-morning. Yali and I hit the store for a few groceries. As we walked down the cereal aisle, Yali found the Captain Crunch. A huge smile lit up his face as he pointed out the captain to me.
“DADDY!” he yelled, delighted with his discovery. He waved to the boxes as we walked away. “Bye, Daddy!”
It was almost game time. Puck’s school was headed to the ballpark for the evening, so he sat down to homework and dinner before we walked out the door. Somewhere between triple-digit sums and prepositions, Puck found his real singing voice for the first time. I think it even surprised himself. Loud and strong; little shock. He began creating original tunes and compositions as he wrapped up his textbooks.
“ABOOOOVE AND BEYOOOOND THE CAAAAL OF DUTY! AND I SMELL PIIIIIE!”
A few hours later, we sat in the steam bath of Big Mac Land, overlooking a tied ballgame. Heidi, Annie-Bea, Bob, and some of the other kids had finished singing the National Anthem. Puck had devoured a giant nine-dollar pretzel. And now he and several of his buddies were pretty dead-set on walking to the other side of the stadium to visit the Budweiser sign above the press boxes. So I agreed to walk them, twice.
By the time we took that second pass around the stadium, the boys were getting pretty pumped.
“THIS IS SO MUCH FUN!” they yelled to no one in particular.
When they arrived at the Budweiser sign, they all seemed to experience some sense of victory.
“I TOUCHED IT! I TOUCHED THE SIGN!”
Later, back at our seats, I joined the posse for the bottom of the 8th, watching Martinez throw his last inning, and trying not to laugh at the conversation of the three boys sitting next to me, who clearly had no intention of watching the rest of the game…
“So who does so-and-so like?”
“Well, so-and-so likes so-and-so.”
“Yeah. I totally knew that.”
“Yeah, I knew that already, too.”
“Who does so-and-so like?”
“So-and-so likes so-and-so.”
“Ha ha ha!”
“Yeah, so-and-so was planning a wedding with so-and-so.”
“That is hilarious.”
“Yeah, but so-and-so always plays it cool, so so-and-so ignores so-and-so. I like that style, you know?