Friday, January 21, 2011

Spiritual Amway 2

  After school lets out, many parents take their children to the adjacent playground to shut them up about taking them to the adjacent playground. This is another place where you will have to interact with other parents, whether you like them or not. Some of them are great, and it is just like talking to real people. Others . . .
  Well, yesterday I took my kid to the park, to find my friend the spamway salesman there with his child. I successfully avoided contact with him for much of the thing. I was privy, however, to his conversations with other parents which, of course, consisted of constant allusions to his meditation, breathing, general flakiness and the bountiful health benefits of being an irritating weirdo. I resisted all forms of assault, and actually did a little therapeutic breathing of my own by sighing in relief when it was time to get the hell out of there.

Retrieving my children from the park is always a shitshow, with dramatic protests and much advertising of my unfair and dictatorial parenting style. I really should hand them some placards and a bullhorn when I want to go home. On this occasion, I got the older boy to comply well enough, meaning after half an hour of arguments and threats he sullenly moped to the car planning my murder, but the 3 year old was not going to go quietly. In no mood, I resorted to packing him off the playground like an armload of firewood. Loud, anguished, obnoxious firewood. I headed for the hills to make good my escape. 
  Obviously, this would be the best time for someone to stop me to blather on and on about some trivial crap they had on their mind, and buddy jumped at the chance. At first I had no idea what the hell he was saying, and then, just before I could grasp what it was he was going on about, the small part of me that could even be bothered to care died. I left it on the playground and moved on. Not one to be deterred by so small an obstacle as obvious and complete disinterest, he began to continue with a new topic. What it was I have no idea; he was probably still talking as I drove away.

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