I can’t go anywhere without someone checking up on me. Someone roughly six to nine years old. If I go from one room to another, immediately I hear (even if I haven’t seen a child in hours) “Where ya goin’ Dad? Whatcha gonna do?” Like I do so many interesting things a day. Usually it’s to get a drink of water, or find the glue for a household repair (Is it put away where it goes? Ha! That is to laugh!), or to check as see what the cat is puking on now. You know, the usual fun stuff.
I guess, conceivably, I could, for no reason and without warning, decide to hop in the car and go to Chicago for a hot dog, leaving my progeny to fend for themselves for ten hours or so. Well, probably less than ten hours because the Little Woman should be home from work before that. So I could just duct tape the kids to chairs (just one chair per child since they’re just little) in the middle of their rooms so they couldn’t hurt themselves and take off. Who would know? What bad could happen?
But it’s not like I’d ever do it. I mean I’ve never even thought of it before. It took me a long time to come up with that scenario for example purposes. Really. (As far as you know.)
But every time I make a move, sometimes I don’t even have to get out of my chair, just stir a little and I get the Third Degree on my intentions. And if I have to go out to the garage, well then it’s not just “Where are you going?” but “What are you bring me back?” (I’m going out to the garage and I’ll bring you back a toilet plunger.)
Martha Stewart shouldn’t have had an electronic tracker strapped to her ankle. She should have been issued a seven year old child. She wouldn’t be able to get anywhere. And you can’t go on the Internet to find out how to remove a kid. Trust me, I know. And the idea of Martha Stewart having to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches every day for lunch and then play round after round of Crazy Eights just cracks me up.
So this weekend I had to actually leave the house. Let the interrogations begin!
“Where ya goin’?”
“To the farmer supply store.”
“Why? Whatcha gonna get there?”
Now I could have just said I was going to the farmer supply store to get a new pair of wellies since my last pair I got from Wal-Mart didn’t meet my stringent needs for reliability. It’s like the Chinese slave labor had no real desire for Quality Control in the rubber boot department. I, theoretically, could have said that. Maybe I should have said that. But I didn’t want to. And it wasn’t my fault. This is why:
I went downstairs to find the yellow pages.
“Where ya goin’?”
“Downstairs to get the yellow pages so…”
“Why ya need the yellow pages?”
“So I can look up a farmer supply store because…”
“Why you need to know where a farmer supply store is?”
“Because I need a new pair of wellies because…”
“Why do you need a new pair of wellies? You have a pair of wellies!”
“Yes, I know. I need a new pair because my old pair isn’t holding up very well.”
“Oh.”
I found the farmer supply store in the yellow pages. Finally. Actually I had to look in the white pages part of the yellow pages because I looked under “Farm Supply” and found nothing and I looked up under “Tractor” and found nothing and I gave up and tried to think what the farmer supply store was called and could think of “Big Blue” and “TS (something, which turned out to be “R”)” so I looked in the white pages part of the yellow pages under “B” and found nothing and then looked under “T” and found what I was looking for. But I still wasn’t sure just where the store was. So I had to get a local map.
“Where ya goin’?”
“To find the map so…”
“Why ya need the map?”
“So I can find where the farmer supply store is.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why do you have to know where the farmer supply store is?”
“So I can go look for a new pair of wellies.”
“Why do you need a new pair of wellies? You have a pair of wellies!”
So now I have to go put on my shoes and get my wallet and my car keys. It’s obvious I’m going on a long trip far away.
“Where ya goin’?”
“To the farmer supply store.”
“Why?”
“TO BUY A GOAT!”
“Huh? A goat? Does Mom know? What kind of goat?”
“I don’t know yet. I have to go see what kind of goats they have. I probably won’t get a goat now since they go on sale in the spring, but I’m thinking of one of those little goats like they have at the zoo.”
“Can I go? To help you pick out a goat?”
“Yeah sure. But remember, we’re not buying a goat today.”
“Oh… Can we buy a chicken? I’d like a chicken!”
“No we can’t get a chicken. I don’t even know if they have chickens. And chickens are dangerous, they’ll peck your eyes out, man.”
“No it won’t. I’d get a nice chicken.”
“But why do we need a chicken? It’s not like we have ticks”
“Ticks?”
“Yeah, if you have ticks in your yard the chicken will eat them.”
“Really?”
"Yeah. Since we don’t have ticks, why would we need a chicken?“"For the eggs.”
“We get our eggs at the store.”
“Oh yeah. So no chicken?”
“No. No chicken. Your Mom wouldn’t let you have a chicken anyway.”
“Yeah, I guess…”
“So are you coming? Hurry up and get your shoes on so we can go.”
“No, that’s OK.” (I mean, I’m not getting a goat right away, he can’t get a chicken and he’d have to put his shoes on. Why would he want to come along?)
So I went to the farmer supply store and got myself a new pair of wellies. A real nice pair. Easily twice, no three times as good as my old Wal-Mart pair. And these boots were made in America by proud United Statesian bootmakers.
Plus I have my eye on a nice goat for this spring.
-Rue.
