The Ride

Recently, I had the pleasure of taking a drive with my in-laws, my son, and my wife. We were off to do some family thing, but that's not what's important here. The ride is what I want to talk about.

The drive we were taking was a 45 minute ride. Not bad as far as rides go. We stopped for lunch along the way (I had one of the best paninis ever, thanks for asking) and then continued on to our destination. We were about 10 minutes out from arriving and for some reason my mother-in-law was possessed to say, "We should stop at the toy store."

Hello? There's a six year old in the car and we're almost there and will actually be on time and you bring up a toy store? I looked for a suitably heavy object to stun her with but the damage was done.

The Boy piped up, "What toy store?"

Luckily, I'm quick in a crisis and came up with, "Your grandmother is thinking of another city entirely. There is no toy store in this town." I punctuated it with a Dirty Look.

Grammy got the hint and backed me up with, "My mistake, there is no toy store in this town. Score one for my Jedi mojo.

Seriously though, I know they had kids; I'm sleeping with one of them. Do they lose that kind of common sense over the years? The kind of common sense that declares you don't fill a six year old's head with visions of toys on an outing?

Weens.

So we arrived and did the family thing. Blah, blah, blah. We had a great time. Yada, yada, yada.

...and we're back in the car. We're pulling out and my father-in-law looks to the left, announces that the store he's looking at sells ice cream, and zooms off for home. I remembered (too late, luckily for grammy) that they keep the tire iron under the seat but he was driving and I figured it was best not to whack him one.

The Boy: "I want ice cream."

Yeah, because you knew that was coming. God forbid pappy could have figured that out beforehand though.

So we were treated to the extended remix of "I Want Ice Cream," for the next twenty minutes. It's sort of like the song, "I Want Candy," except that there's no tune, you can't groove to it, and it inspires madness and despair.

At some point my FIL told The Boy that he would find him a place to get ice cream. Whatever. I was thinking of walking home by that point.

Finally, we find a McDonald's. Close enough, they have sundaes. We pulled in, gave our order (The Boy opted for chicken nuggets because they're so much like ice cream), and waited. For a long time. Because I've evidently offended the gods and deserve this ride.

We get to the window and get part of our order. Not all of it mind you since counting to two is a life skill that the chick that worked the window never mastered. The skill she did master? Apathy. Truthfully, she could have turned pro. If apathy could be spent as currency, she could have retired then and there.

She literally stared at us when we said we ordered two sundaes and only received one. She didn't turn to correct the situation or ask anyone else to. She stared. Eventually we taught her the concept of this "two" through a combination of speaking slowly and complex gestures involving our index and middle fingers held in a sort of "V" shape.

Welcome to central Pennsylvania!

We finally pulled out. I was more than ready for drinks by this point when more FIL says, "Why don't we go see the deer?"

There's a guy who has some land fenced off. He keeps deer on the land. They look like...um...deer. My son has seen the deer before but in an effort to magically transform the interminable into the intolerable, my FIL offers to make our trip even longer.

Just. Freaking. Awesome.

We drove a bit out of our way. We stared at the deer, they stared at us. Some had antlers, some didn't. They were trees as well. Yippee.

Finally we arrived home. I'm not sure the vehicle came to a full stop before I got out, but I was out.

I'm still plotting to get my in-laws back for that ride.

 

Technorati Tags: I'll walk next time