Boys Like Weird Things

8:15. Puck and I walked into the school gym of screaming children. Sometimes I do stupid things, like volunteer to drive a pack of boys on a field trip to Purina Farms. Fortunately for me, that pack was small. Only three will fit in the back seat.

It was a decent drive out there. I would estimate that for about half that time these three nuts discussed bat droppings. When they got tired of that, they decided to harass truckers in the lane beside us.

“MOOOOMMMMYYYY!!!!” one of the kids started yelling through the window.

I locked the windows. Tried distracting them with music. Nothing worked until I switched on “Oppa Gangnam Style.” That was the ticket. Good thing was, I think they wore themselves out so much that by the time we got to the farm, they actually weren’t completely bonkers.

Cow-milking, dog-jumping, hayless-hay-riding. About two hours of that and it was all over. I wasn’t complaining. The amazing volume of sound that second graders are capable of producing – incredible.

Queeny Park was the destination of choice for about thirty ragamuffins and their lunch bags. About five minutes later they were off terrorizing the monkey bars and whatever other indestructible structures littered the playground.

I took one corner of the landscape to monitor the activity, while Mr. V stood sentry on the “mountaintop” and most of the moms yakked over lunch elsewhere. Eventually I became distracted with the gravel, fishing out pieces of quartz and fossils. When I looked up again, about five or six kids had joined me – fascinated with the process.

We carried off a trove, including two petrified “Cheerios” those bead-like crinoids, ancient sea worms. Success.

After the drive back to school involving another healthy dose of “boy talk” weighing heavily in favor of disgusting bodily functions, and just how rich one of the kids was – “My dad still has like seventeen million dollars. He’s so rich.” I believed him – I took half an hour of quiet on the parking lot before pick-up time.

Dinner was pancakes. But none of those tasty Bisquick versions. No; I’m going renegade, whole wheat banana style. They were good enough to skip the maple syrup. The experiment continues.

That evening, Puck wrapped up his prayer with a mixed fragment of Dad’s standard mealtime prayers, “And strengths and provides… Heh heh. I got that from Grandpa.”