Camp and a Sidestory

A few weekends ago, Dave took Jack and a fellow Cub Scout to a enjoy a few days of 8 year old type fun.  You know what I mean…boating, archery, rock wall climbing, snake spotting, farting/burping contests, sleeping on rocks, and performing crazed rickshaw tricks.

Snake! In the lake they were just swimming in!  This is why Dads go to camp and moms stay home.  This and the sleeping on rocks thing.  Also I’m not so interested in burping or farting.

The highlight of the day (for me, as an innocent, snorting-with-glee person who stayed home and felt a teeny bit guilty about it) involved this thing:

Except that Dave was sitting in the rickshaw, and Jack was pulling it.  Down a hill.  Really fast.  And then Jack tripped, the rickshaw’s arms went down and poked into the ground, and Dave flew out of the rickshaw, and over Jack’s head, landing safely in a pile of steaming manure.  I added the manure part in my imagination, but the story almost doesn’t need it.  Is that not an awesome visual?  I almost would have risked snakes and poor sleep conditions to have witnessed those very awesome 3 seconds of time.

Neither father nor son received any injury of any sort.  Maybe some slightly bruised egos, but that’s it.

Kreider and Jack had a great time.

Meanwhile, back at the Wolfe den (those wolf puns never get old), Maddie and I went to one of Ben’s ball games.  The next day we were lazy, and lots of screens were involved, until it was time to go shopping.  Ben was going to stay home alone for a short while, because I didn’t think he’d be interested in the sort of shopping we had planned, which involved female undergarments.  Ahem.  But when he found out, he begged to come with us, because he wanted to include a little side trip to Gamestop while we were at the mall.  I warned him, people.  I warned him about what we would be doing, but the siren call of Gamestop clouded his judgement, I do believe.

Anywho, we got the undergarment shopping out of the way first, and I plopped him in a chair near the dressing rooms in the Women’s Foundations department of Boscov’s, handed him my phone, then he immediately ducked his head down and did not look around, for fear his eyes would freeze, or for fear that someone would see him, more like.

It probably took 20-25 minutes all told to search for, try on, search again, and try on again the bras, and then make our purchases.  When we left, the relief palpable on his anguished little face, he asked how hard it was to try on bras.  “Seriously!  You took forever!  When we get to the car, I’m going to take my shirt off and on and show you how fast changing can happen!”   And then he asked for a soft pretzel to help ease his pain.  I wanted to say, “Dude.  Someday you probably will be removing someone’s bra.   Talk to me then about how easy it is.”  But I didn’t, partly because I didn’t want to mentally go there and partly because his psyche had already taken a beating.

Then we went to Gamestop and had supper at Wendy’s and dessert at DQ, where Ben got a butterscotch dipped ice cream cone to ease his pain. And all was right with the world again.