First of all, hope all of you had a wonderful Fourth of July and got to share time with your family and/or friends…the ocean of estrogen and I attended the Las Vegas 51s AAA baseball game, complete with fireworks after the game…after the sun went down and the temperature dropped to 100, it was a nice evening…and the fireworks were really good.
Speaking of fireworks, (this is the gambling portion of the entry), on August 26th, there is going to be a real “sparkler” of a fight between Conor McGregor and Floyd “Money” Mayweather here in Las Vegas…remember you heard it here first…if you like making money, as much as it pains you, as much as you hate the guy and all he stands for, and as much as you want to see him get knocked the hell out, bet on Mayweather to win…it will cost you, but he is going to win…
Enough about that…we had our own “BULLSHIT fireworks” within the ocean of estrogen that I wanted to share…allow me to set the stage for you…we just finished a meeting for softball at one of the dad’s offices, which sits right next to the Aces Bar…I drove separately as I came straight from work so I parked in a different row than Mama parked the van…
For those of you who don’t know, the ocean of estrogen somehow outgrew a minivan…I am still not sure how that is possible, but we went bigger…you know the van they pick you up in at the airport to shuttle you and other passengers to their cars? Yes, it looks like that…we have had the Ford Transit 350, 12 passenger van for a year, and, in hindsight, it’s awesome…oh, yeah, it’s terrible on gas, we need a 7′ clearance to park, but for all the road trips, it literally is the ultimate road trip vehicle…everyone has their own row, their own USB port, and, if things go south, we will be able to live in the damn thing.
So we leave the meeting, and since you can’t miss our family truckster from anywhere, we all start walking to it…it’s night time, and the parking lot is dimly lit…I walk fast normally, but with all these little people, I might as well be Usain Bolt…I am always in front with the pack a few steps behind…as we approach the van, I unlock the doors to hopefully expedite the loading process because now we are going out to dinner…in my haste, I neglected to notice something on the ground next to the van…I’ll give you three guesses…
Nope…nope…ahhhh, nope…
It’s a used condom…now, who sees it first? Certainly not me or Mama…not the three year old…not the 13 year old who knows everything…yep, it’s my totally innocent yet super inquisitive, 11 year old super sleuth…”Daddy, what is that?”
Somehow, the 13 year old ran by it holding her baby sister and began the loading process…the sliding door is open, the baby is singing “Can’t Stop the Feeling”, the Justin Timberlake song from the movie Trolls, and the 13 year old is in the back row, head buried in her phone…a few steps behind, here comes Mama…feet frozen, legs locked up, I am looking for help…
As I am staring at Jess, desperately trying to get her attention via telepathy, the 11 year old goes, “Mama, look at this thing. What is THAT?” My jaw is wired shut at this point. I froze, unable to speak…Mama takes two more steps, looks down and goes “ewwwweewewwew”…no BULLSHIT, this is not the reaction I was looking for.
It was just loud enough for the District Attorney 13 year old to jump up and remove her face from her Instagram account…she looks down and yells, “OH MY GOD!!! GET AWAY FROM THAT!!!” You’d have thought it was a goddamn rattlesnake…
The 11 year old is just standing there like a CSI crime scene investigator, staring at it…she asks again, as innocent as can be, “What is that? Relax, sis, what is the big deal? It’s not moving.”
The 13 year old DA is now standing in the van, holding onto the roof, and yells out, “BACK AWAY from it right now!!!” It might as well be lava rolling toward her at this point…for the record, I am still just frozen like a statue, looking for words that just don’t come…
Again, it comes. “Daddy, what is that thing and why is she freaking out?” I look at Jess. She act like she don’t know me and can’t speak English…from her higher ground position in the van, the 13 year old DA yells out, “Daddy, she will learn about that in her 7th grade health class. Just go to your car already.” With that gem, she slams the van door shut, leaving the three of us to stand there, frozen in time.
Jess makes a break for it, heading to the driver’s side of the van…we made eye contact, and I swear she said, “No Hablo Ingles”…she don’t walk fast normally, but she was gone in a flash…at this point, all I can muster up is “let’s go Kels”, and we start walking the 50 feet to my car…fifty feet might as well have been a mile…she asked again…I took a deep breath…”Get in the car and I will tell you.”
For those of you who haven’t read the past entries, find the entry about the “penis song”…that will give you some insight into the talk that I had with my then 9 year old detective…this is the kid who asks questions until she gets an answer…she will ask and ask and ask until she beats you down for the truth…
I put the dinner destination in the Waze app on my phone…nine minutes…that is how long it was going to take us to get to dinner…and that was how long I had to explain this still steaming, used condom on the ground…BULLSHIT! I just wanted to eat some wings, go home and get to bed…
One minute into the drive, I explain that this was a condom…first question, “Daddy, I thought that was where you live, like an apartment.” No, young Jedi, that is called a condominium…”Oh, it sounds like that…don’t you call that place a condom?” NO dear, you call that a CONDO. “OH, ok.” Silence…maybe I am off the hook or can shake her off the scent…
“Daddy, how do you say that word again?” Con-DOM…another red light…we hit every goddamn red light…next question, “What do you use that for?” Good question…the A/C in the car is on high, yet I am sweating…long ago, I learned, the truth is the only way to go in these spots…”Well, a man puts it over his penis when he has sex.” Waze said turn left. Still six minutes away…
“WHY would he do that?” No BULLSHIT, I am sweating now just typing this out…gotta keep it real…I start babbling and explain that is the only way people have sex to prevent diseases and practice safe sex, meaning not make babies…I am focused on the road at this point, hoping I have bored her enough or we are at our destination…glance at the phone, we are still 3 minutes away…
“Daddy, so, that means that all grown ups have sex then?” Damn, she is good…all I have left is the truth…but in one of those true father moments, I use it as a teaching lesson…
“Yeah, Kels, pretty much…BUT, when you get old enough to have sex, that is the ONLY way you will do it!! UNDERSTOOD?” Our eyes are locked…
She nods with that bewildered face…I park the car…like angels from heaven, Waze belts out “You have reached your destination”
We get out of the car, and I go “OK, are you good?” Yes, Daddy…”OK, let’s go eat.” And just like that, we walked to the front door of the restaurant…NO BULLSHIT, I was walking and scanning the parking lot every step of the way.
bullshitterz 