If you are new to the blog...Sylvia and I have two teenage kids. They are wonderful, charming, helpful, and several other adjectives that would look great on anyone's resume. They are also not "allowed" to admit that their old man is funny. After years of deflecting comments stating that I was funny I have finally gotten to a place where I can say, "OK, in certain instances...with the right people...between a certain longitude and latitude...between the hours of 8:12 A.M. and 6:43 P.M....under the proper barometric conditions (I'm writing this at 7:48 is that clears anything up), I can be humorous." Unless I'm talking to my kids...then I'm FUN-NY! The problem arises when their friends say that I am funny. It is met with a new and emphatic "NO! He thinks he is!" I naively thought this was about me. Turns out I was wrong.
Last Friday the kids participated in a progressive dinner/scavenger hunt. The teams go from place to place eating a different course of the meal as they searched for objects to gather and pictures to take. There were about 25 teenagers that gathered into 5 cars. They all had a list of clues, a list of hidden locations, and a stopwatch. Each team left the starting point at a staggered time so they wouldn't encounter each other as they raced (drove responsibly in a safe manner...in case any Fremont police are reading this) around town. Sylvia has been the driver numerous times but this year, to change things up, we elected to be one of the houses. This meant that we provided one of the courses for the meal. We opted for hors d'oeurves. (please don't make me spell that again) The nice thing about being in charge of the hors d'oeurves (D'Oh!) is that we were first. We didn't have to wait until late in the night, we didn't have too much to prepare food-wise, and we didn't have to worry about having every teen in the house at the same time since there was little possibility of them catching up to each other right away. I was naive about this too.
Sylvia and I went shopping for our little corner of the feast and we foolishly kept saying things like, "Maybe that's enough." and "We've never needed more than that." The actual event occurred in somewhat of a blur. Sylvia got an entire crock pot full of nacho cheese cooking. We organized the kitchen to fit the maximum amount of people. There were supposed to be five or six at a time. Then we sat back and waited. The six o'clock start time came and went. Then it was six fifteen. We kept hearing cars slow down...then drive away. Finally at about six thirty we got the first carload. Then six thirty one the next. Then six thirty five, then six forty, then six forty two. They were all under the instructions that they needed to wait at each house for twenty minutes before opening the next clue and going on their way. We had all the kids and all the drivers at the same time.
There was commotion. There was noise. There was a crowd big enough to make an introvert like myself want to desperately check Facebook statuses in another room! But I mustered enough intestinal fortitude to go out into my own kitchen and stand there hoping that there wouldn't be a lot of small talk. I flunked small talk in high school. I was standing there minding my own business when my phone went off. It didn't ring. It signaled that I got a text. Since I tend to try to stay on the cutting edge of technology (ha!) I had recently found an alert message from the minions in Despicable Me. It's really kind of cute. It goes "Ooh Hoo! Text Message!" in the sing-songy way high-pitched way that they talk. There were many people here but since I am deaf to all things phone-like I almost always have it turned up to the maximum. One of the kids heard the message and made an assumption. It went something like this.
"Mom! How could you?!"
"What?"
"That ring tone! Oh My Goodness!" (obviously embarrassed by her lack of decorum while being surrounded by nacho eating locusts)
"What ring tone?" (She is obviously worse than me in the phone hearing department)
Then my phone got another message and the kid zeroed in on the sound coming from my pocket. As soon as it wasn't his mom, the conversation changed.
"Oh My God THAT IS THE GREATEST RING TONE EVER!"
Then it struck me...it may just be a proximity thing. This guy is near his mom most of the time. Mom's cannot be cool. Therefore anything close to his mom is not cool. I barely see him maybe once a year. I am allowed to be partially cool (for an old guy). My kids are close to me. Dad's are also not cool. So everything I touch, see, say, or am involved in may not be cool in their eyes. This is strictly a mathematical formula! Coolness is inversely affected by proximity. D X 1/P = C cubed. Phew! Because my kids weren't laughing at me I was going to dig my rubber chicken and fake vomit out of the garage. Guess I can save myself the trouble.
Last Friday the kids participated in a progressive dinner/scavenger hunt. The teams go from place to place eating a different course of the meal as they searched for objects to gather and pictures to take. There were about 25 teenagers that gathered into 5 cars. They all had a list of clues, a list of hidden locations, and a stopwatch. Each team left the starting point at a staggered time so they wouldn't encounter each other as they raced (drove responsibly in a safe manner...in case any Fremont police are reading this) around town. Sylvia has been the driver numerous times but this year, to change things up, we elected to be one of the houses. This meant that we provided one of the courses for the meal. We opted for hors d'oeurves. (please don't make me spell that again) The nice thing about being in charge of the hors d'oeurves (D'Oh!) is that we were first. We didn't have to wait until late in the night, we didn't have too much to prepare food-wise, and we didn't have to worry about having every teen in the house at the same time since there was little possibility of them catching up to each other right away. I was naive about this too.
Sylvia and I went shopping for our little corner of the feast and we foolishly kept saying things like, "Maybe that's enough." and "We've never needed more than that." The actual event occurred in somewhat of a blur. Sylvia got an entire crock pot full of nacho cheese cooking. We organized the kitchen to fit the maximum amount of people. There were supposed to be five or six at a time. Then we sat back and waited. The six o'clock start time came and went. Then it was six fifteen. We kept hearing cars slow down...then drive away. Finally at about six thirty we got the first carload. Then six thirty one the next. Then six thirty five, then six forty, then six forty two. They were all under the instructions that they needed to wait at each house for twenty minutes before opening the next clue and going on their way. We had all the kids and all the drivers at the same time.
There was commotion. There was noise. There was a crowd big enough to make an introvert like myself want to desperately check Facebook statuses in another room! But I mustered enough intestinal fortitude to go out into my own kitchen and stand there hoping that there wouldn't be a lot of small talk. I flunked small talk in high school. I was standing there minding my own business when my phone went off. It didn't ring. It signaled that I got a text. Since I tend to try to stay on the cutting edge of technology (ha!) I had recently found an alert message from the minions in Despicable Me. It's really kind of cute. It goes "Ooh Hoo! Text Message!" in the sing-songy way high-pitched way that they talk. There were many people here but since I am deaf to all things phone-like I almost always have it turned up to the maximum. One of the kids heard the message and made an assumption. It went something like this.
"Mom! How could you?!"
"What?"
"That ring tone! Oh My Goodness!" (obviously embarrassed by her lack of decorum while being surrounded by nacho eating locusts)
"What ring tone?" (She is obviously worse than me in the phone hearing department)
Then my phone got another message and the kid zeroed in on the sound coming from my pocket. As soon as it wasn't his mom, the conversation changed.
"Oh My God THAT IS THE GREATEST RING TONE EVER!"
Then it struck me...it may just be a proximity thing. This guy is near his mom most of the time. Mom's cannot be cool. Therefore anything close to his mom is not cool. I barely see him maybe once a year. I am allowed to be partially cool (for an old guy). My kids are close to me. Dad's are also not cool. So everything I touch, see, say, or am involved in may not be cool in their eyes. This is strictly a mathematical formula! Coolness is inversely affected by proximity. D X 1/P = C cubed. Phew! Because my kids weren't laughing at me I was going to dig my rubber chicken and fake vomit out of the garage. Guess I can save myself the trouble.
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