A quick story, and a question

5:30 last night I pick up Thing 1 at his after-school program. He looks a little down.

"How was your day, sweetie?"
"Oh, OK. I'm not feeling that great."
"Why? What's wrong?"

And then these words were uttered:

"I have a concert tonight."

My mental Robbie the Robot started running around waving his dryer-duct arms, shouting "Danger Will Robinson!" which is weird, because my name is most certainly NOT Will Robinson, but old cliches die hard, apparently.

"What time do you have to be at school, honey?"

"6:30."

Somewhere off in the distance an asthmatic cricket tried to chirp at this news.

Breep? Breep? Ah, fugeddaboudit...

All thoughts of the evening's previously arranged activities (a family dinner of crockpot chicken and rice followed by either a walk in the warm evening to the seminary and back or a quick game of Frisbee, then a round of showers and some high-quality teevee viewing) flew right out the window, smashing to bits on the cold hard pavement of reality.

It was 'go' time.

The math wizards in my brain shoved Robbie out of the way so to take on full power in order to calculate whether or not it was going to even be POSSIBLE to

• 1) pick up Thing 2 from his after shool program,
• 2) get home,
• 3) get them a snack,
• 4) iron Thing 1's tux shirt (which, thankfully, he'd brought with him from his Dad's house),
• 5) find a pair of black pants for him to wear,
• 6) find a pair of black shoes for him to wear,
• 7) get his face washed and hair brushed, and
• 8) get him BACK to school in the 45 minutes we had in which to do it.

By some small miracle, or perhaps a serendipitous rend in the space-time continuuuuuum, we managed to pull off the 8-step plan in plenty of time. Even managed to call the Things' Dad to remind him of the thing we both forgot that we knew about last week.

I have to say though that in the end, if attending their concerts wasn't such a big part of their grade, I'm not sure I would have done all that running around. The band was "off." They had to re-start one of their tunes (a real no-no for concert times), they did some crazy-ass knockoff of John Cage's "4 minutes and 33 seconds of silence" that was NOT properly introduced and therefore had the crowd scratching their heads, and once they got off stage they got chewed out by their band conductor for screwing up.

Really? The walk would have been so much more enjoyable.

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OK - who would YOU rather hug?

Areeeeeeeeeeeeeeeetha!

Or

A skinny dude who just won his second Iditarod?

Let's go over the pros and cons, shall we?

1) Aretha.
Pros: she's soft, prolly nice and warm, and once the snuggling was over you wouldn't need a blanket because she'd cover you ALL ovah with her might lub powahs. Also? She's still got an adorable face. Plus, for all you guys - mountains of boobs!!.

Cons: Fighting your way OUT of the lub powahs might be tough once she had you pinned. Then there's that question of "what the bloody hell is growing in that armpit?" Lastly, and I hate to mention this, but it must be done - could anyone who is not the giant mutant spawn of an arachnid actually be able to put their arms around Miss Thang in order to GIVE her a hug? I have my doubts.

2) Skinny Dude Who Just Won the Itarod for the Second Time

Pros: He has conquered Nature, and has the world's most adorable dog.

Cons: 9 days in a sled. Woof.



My answer? I'd have to give this one to Aretha. Let's face it - It's all about the boobs on this one.

Your turn: Who would you rather hug (and nobody better say "the dog," because that's the easy out, and you're better than that Just look at that face! SO freaking CUTE!)

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I'm out of here for the weekend. It's going to be full of reptiles and high kicks, yo. Stories on Monday, fo sho.