Outing From Hell

Today I needed to kill exactly one hour between school pick-up and Kung fu class. Today it also happened to be 98 degrees out, so having a nice little picnic snack was not an option. And running home to dip in the pool was also not an option because none of us would want to cut swim time short to go to Kung fu.

So I came up with this Brilliant Plan. I would take the kids to the newly opened frozen yogurt place downtown for a frosty treat. We would sit in the air conditioning, enjoy a snack, and relax until it was time to drive the 15 minutes to Kung fu.

Oh, but then I worried that this plan was so brilliant that surely everyone with a child would make the same plan for an after school frozen treat. So I even made TWO backup plans. First I identified a restaurant near the yogurt shop that had fruit smoothies. And then I always had the public library in my back pocket as well--thanks to a clever coworker for that idea. True, the library does not serve treats, but it has AC, and the kids love it, and it's free!

The kids were aware of plans A and B, but I made no mention of the library idea. Still, as we pulled into a parking spot downtown, Tai asked, "How come we NEVER go to book stores or libraries anymore EVER?". (For the record, it has been about 2 weeks since our last library visit.) I brushed off his criticism of my choice of activity and we proceeded with Plan A. Bookworm that he is, Tai asked to bring his new Superman book into the yogurt shop to read. I said yes. This will be important later in the story.

Much to my delight the yogurt shop did not have a line out the door and even 4 of the 5 tables were empty.  "Ha Ha! I must be the only genius in town!" Not really.

Upon entering the shop I immediately noticed (and could not stop from exclaiming loudly) "Oh, there's no air conditioning!!!" Of course the employees heard me and one of them sheepishly explained that it was in fact on (so why was the front door propped open?) while the other employee launched into a much-too-detailed explanation of why they only had three (crappy) flavors to offer today.

Given the limited choices, Tai and Quynh both opted for vanilla. True to form, at the self-serve toppings bar Tai chose fruit and Quynh wanted gummy bears. When I asked Tai what he wanted on his yogurt and showed him the numerous options he pointed to the maraschino cherries and said, "a cherry!". When I asked what else he wanted, my sometimes-greedy and relatively-spoiled child said, "I can have MORE?? Can I have THREE cherries?". In the end I convinced him it would be OK to have several cherries and a few raspberries too. He was delighted.

After sitting there for 15 minutes, sweat literally running down my face and other body parts, we were all ready to get the hell out of there. And it was not nearly time for Kung fu. We all agreed that we needed AC for the next 20 minutes, badly. The library idea crossed my mind right as Tai said, "I bet there is air conditioning in a book store or library." Smart kid. The library is free, but it was a bit further away, and in the opposite direction from the car. But there was a book store right across from the car. Perfect!

The book store was Icy Cold. We sat on the floor and read various books. It crossed my mind to leave without buying anything. But I was soaking up their AC. And my kids do love books. It's not like I was spoiling them with candy or anything. So I said we could get something but they better hurry up and choose, it was time to head to Kung fu. After a lame attempt at negotiation, I ended up buying them EACH a book simply because I did not have the TIME for them to settle on one they both wanted. Let me just say that the 20 minutes of AC cost $1.80 per minute. This put me in a foul mood. Also, we were already running late for Kung fu.

So, Quynh in arms, back into the heat we went, across the street, to the car, rushing, rushing, rushing for Kung fu. We got to the blazing hot car and started to get in when Tai calls out in a panic...(can you guess?) ..."Where is my superman book???"

F$&K!!!!!

I didn't really say that out loud to my kid, but I thought it. "I don't know--Where did you LEAVE it?" and then, "OK, let's go back for it," is what I said in a clearly exasperated voice, along with a mini-lecture about taking responsibility and if we had made it all the way to Kung fu before he realized I would NOT have gone back.

Tai was sure the last place he saw it was the yogurt shop, so back we went and they had indeed put it behind the counter for us. Tai was visibly relieved.

In the end, we made it to Kung fu 15 minutes late for a 45 minute class. I remained grouchy pretty much all the way until we made it home and right into the pool.