Failure to Communicate
Oxbear texted me at about 9:30 that morning:
“I think Matt Carpenter is in this restaurant.”
Considering that Oxbear was apparently stopping for a late breakfast at Half and Half in Clayton, this would be zero surprise. Those Cardinals always seem to be eating somewhere in Clayton. I didn’t ask for an iPhone snapshot as confirmation. They aren’t zoo animals, after all. But that tall wiry black-bearded Texan definitely tends to stand out in a crowd, so Oxbear let the 95% confirmed 3rd baseman “Marp” breakfast in peace.
Meanwhile, Yali whined on the drive to school because he couldn’t manage to wear his sombrero – a recent gift from Aunt Rose – on his head while sitting in his car seat. Then he whined on the drive home because he couldn’t velcro his red super hero cape around his neck while sitting in his car seat. The agony of being almost three years old. It’s just sometimes unbearable.
Between a few minor rain bursts that afternoon, we ended up in the gym after school with Bob and Annie-Bea and caterpillar-like chains of attaching scooter boards. Somehow, Bob was the only one who continued to crash on a regular basis. And not even into the walls or pillars, but into the floor. Somehow.
“Uh, Bob? Are you okay?”
“Yup! … I like pain!”
When we left at four o’clock, traffic was already heavy on the Page Extension.
“Wonder what this is all about,” I said more to myself than anyone else.
“Probably the rain, Mom,” Puck said. “And everyone has a different rush-hour time. … Or maybe a lot of them have birthdays and they’re leaving work early for their birthdays. April is a popular birthday month.”
During dinner, Puck had a confession to make.
“I was supposed to turn my Spanish homework in today, not Thursday. So I had to do it during recess.”
“Ah.”
“So did some of the other kids. And then I had to redo the WHOLE THING because I wrote it wrong!”
“How did you write it wrong?”
“I was supposed to write all the answers in SPANISH, but I wrote them in ENGLISH! How was I supposed to know that?!”