Okay, slightly misleading title, but the damn song is in my head and has been since last night so I had to inflict it upon you, gentle reader.

Like walking in the rain and the snow
When there’s nowhere to go
And you’re feelin’ like a part of you is dying
And you’re looking for the answer in her eyes.
You think you’re gonna break up
Then she says she wants to make up.

(I always thought that last line was “make out”. It made more sense, in my juvenile mind at the time, kinda the way Van Halen sang about “Padded bra” instead of “Panama.” But I digress…)

Okay, last night I left work at 5:00. Here’s what I was looking forward to (and I’ll borrow from Mir here a little bit)

fantasy
The Aggies were playing on ESPN at 6:45. The Cowboys were playing on TV, too. There is a pizza place that has awesome food and very cold beer and I was going to go with the boys and watch, since they also have two televisions.

Cold hard reality
My wife was puking when she got home, so I took all three kids to an all-you-can-eat pizza place (that does not serve beer) so I could eat crappy pizza while they refused it. Of course, they picked the place and begged to go there.

Then, forty minutes after arriving at the pizza place, we were required to be at a Cub Scout meeting. But not any cub scout meeting, this was the kickoff/sign up meeting and since my son is now a big 1st grader he’s allowed. So me and the three kids go and listen to the nice grownups read from their prepared materials while everyone’s kids get antsy. Especially mine. Did I mention they didn’t eat? A four year old can handle this. The baby? Not so well. I spent most of the meeting (where they were telling us Very Important Things) outside so the screaming baby didn’t disturb the other kind parents.

In the end they finally passed out the application forms. I asked if I could fill mine out and bring it back. “I.. guess.. so…” said the helpful lady. Well, we’d better just make it so, since a) the cub scouts aren’t going anywhere and they can wait a day or so more for my application and b) I already signed the darn list with my address and phone number so we could be included and 3) there was no way in hell I would be able to fill out a six page form (“you’re making multiple copies, press hard”) while holding a screaming baby and tracking a four and six year old, each of which had wound themselves up into Category 4 since the only thing they DID consume at the pizza place was coke. We took our forms and left.

“Where are we going now, Daddy?”

“Home.”

“Nooooooooooooo!”

We go home, I change the baby and put her to bed, leave the boys watching tv with Puking Momma (after checking her pulse to make sure that was a Wise Thing To Do, don’t wanna give them any more fodder for therapy than they already have). I run back out the door and:

Go to the wholesale club to get laundry soap. We buy in bulk or we’d be buying it every other day. I noticed a pallet of “Passion of the Christ” for sale and couldn’t help but think of my son saying “That God movie is really scary. It’s rated R since it’s so violent.” Just what I want my son thinking about God – he’s too violent for kids.

Go to the post office to mail off Important Paperwork (non-scouting variety) that really should have been mailed the day before.

Finally, I went to Shakes and bought myself a frozen custard and went home.

I went to sleep on the floor of the boys room, since they both said they were “scared.” The RNC was on, maybe that was why. Watching Pataki smirk as he talked about Saddam and Osama as if they were the same person was enough to make me scared, too.

Bring back the fantasy!