We were all having dinner out the other night at a somewhat upscale downtown restaurant. The kids were unusually naughty. And when I say unusually, it’s pretty bad. Normally, my children are those children that can’t sit still and are crawling under the table or throwing crayons at each other.
But this night was exceptionally bad and I didn’t mind because of the company we were with. I never thought I’d wish for my kids to unleash their worst upon someone, but this night was a prayer answered. Put it this way: If you had a spouse that left you to go party like a rockstar and left you to raise your twins alone and then suddenly showed up in your hometown to remind you he has an inkling of remorse, you would probably wish that those twins showed him just how difficult the last 6 years have been. Well our kids showed him that and then some. I took such secret joy in watching him try to enjoy his expensive meal with twin 6 year olds climbing on his shoulders and smacking him with menus. Touché says I.
So come dessert time, the waiter (who had been wonderfully patient with our table this night) approached the table with the dessert menu, opened to the first page and began his rehearsed dessert speech. But my daughter would have nothing of it. As soon as he pointed to the first item on the page, she grabbed the menu from his hands and said very boisterously, “Thanks!”
First we cringed, then we laughed.
Then just today, the family was walking through the mall on our way back to Macy’s where the car was parked. We had to pass by the annoying Disney World Time Share salesman who barely speaks English. We must’ve looked like a good target — what, with our screaming, jumping twin 6 year old girls chanting “Disney World! Disney World! Look! Disney World! Can we go to Disney World?”
As soon as I looked up from my very obvious and sudden fascination with the tiles on the mall floor as we walked past him, the salesman started his speech to my husband. “See a 90 minute presentation and I’ll give you this free iPod!” Hubby mumbled something about being busy and in a hurry to get home, and so he predictably turned to me. Apparently the wife is better prey since we are the more naive of the pair, huh? “See this 90 minute presentation and I’ll give you this free iPod!” I thanked him with a smile and said that we are really in a hurry.
My daughter, however, caught just the “free iPod” part and decided to act on it. She probably figured that since mommy and daddy denied her of an iPod at her birthday party the week before, this is as good a time as any to accept an iPod. Especially a free one. So as hubby and I walked away from Mr. Salesman, my daughter grabbed the iPod (which was a fake, by the way) from the salesman and enthusiastically yelled “Thanks!” as she skipped toward us. “Check it out! Free iPod!” ”NO!” I yelled, “Give that back to the man. You can’t have that!” Boy was she ever bummed.
‘Course now that I think about it, it would have been great fun to have the twins try to sit through a 90 minute presentation. I wonder how long it would take before the presenter said “Fuck this shit. They don’t pay me enough to do this.”
Easy free fake iPod. Maybe my kid was on to something.
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I saved the best story for last.
Tonight we were all watching TV when a commercial for Gerber comes on. It’s the one for the life insurance they sell with a really endearing looking actress who is so obviously not the mother of the cute baby she’s sitting next to. Being the bitch I am, I casually snarked, “That woman has a side pony tail.” (You know, the kind you wore in 1983), and as soon as I said it, my daughter exclaimed, “That woman sucks!”
First we cringed, then we laughed.
My husband’s reaction was much less positive than mine because all he said was “See? You’re rubbing off on her.”
