I received this message in an email Saturday morning:
"Try to be reasonable in the way you grow, and don't ever think it is too late. It is never too late. Even if you are going to die tomorrow, keep yourself straight and clear and be a happy human being today. If you keep your situation happy day by day, you will eventually reach the greatest happiness of enlightenment."
-Lama Thubten Yeshe, The Bliss of Inner Fire
Now. I'm thinking to myself, "Okay. I could just delete this and go on rolling in the sarcasm, or I could take this little nugget of wisdom for a walk around the block and see what happens." I'm adventurous (or wish I was), so...
Because Ryan insisted the neighbors would LOVE to have her as an extra daughter, we called them and left a message to get back to us on that possibility, STAT.
After waiting 5 whole minutes for them to return the call, we got bored, so I decided to take the kids to see Ice Age: The Meltdown Saturday afternoon, mostly because all 3 of us are snotty (physically -- shut it), but even more so because Shawn was closing the restauraunt and I was facing the rest of the entire evening alone.
So we pile in the car (happy! happy!) and as we make our way to the ticket booth, the just-barely-pubescent cashier tries to let me down easy:
"You might want to know that this showing is pretty crowded, in fact, it's almost sold out."
Genius is telling this to a woman hopped up on allergy/sinus meds, toting a goopy-eyed 4 yr old and a wheeling a watermelon-sized goopy-eyed baby, both of whom are tired, hopped up on allergy meds, and hungry.
"Just sell me the tickets, please." (Happy!Happy!)
$6 later, we were in -- but not for long.
After searching the tiny theatre for at least 2 seats together (preferably aisle, please--what with the enormous stroller and all), I finally score a spot on the second row against the wall. PERFECT. Even better was the fact that Ms. Mormon and her brood taking up the rest of the row were very scary in a "we're all robots" kinda way, so Ryan insisted on gluing herself to my leg during the trip to the front of the room to drop off the stroller, back to our row, and then allllll the way down to our seats. That was neat. (Happy!Happy!)
Okay! So, re-grouping, I get us situated in our seats, open the diaper bag, hand out snax, the movie starts, and we're laughing, we're laughing, we're --
"no, Jax! Sit still! Stop! Shhhh. Please stop screaming! Oh God, don't throw the bin--"
Yep. Threw his binky right into the back of the rather large and menacing woman in front of us. You'd think this wouldn't be such a big deal, since we were there watching a KIDDIE film and all, but I've yet to reveal that we were at the discount theatre.
Discount patrons are serious about their movie-viewing experience. We don't have a lot of the mula to throw around, which is why we're putting up with the non-razed, sticky-floored, old-school-style theatre seating in the first place. Needless to say, the lady wasn't following our Happy!Happy! lead.
Oh-so-sorry smiles and apologies followed, and we settled back into our seats. I'd lost the binky , so I pulled a granola bar out of my bag of tricks in an effort to keep my poor, sick, sleepy baby quiet for you know, 2 hours. The brick-sized piece I broke off apparently wasn't big enough, so I quickly handed over the entire thing which he immediately threw. In front of him. And hit that lady in the head. Again.
So there we were, 10 minutes into the movie, sheepishly gathering our wares, scuffling to the front, crouched over, grabbing our stroller and performing the walk of shame out of the theatre, all set to the pleasing tunes of Jaxson York's greatest hits. (Happy!Happy!)
Luckily, the movie was my idea in the first place (brilliance lurks just beneath the surface -- I swear), so Ry wasn't too crushed, especially when I bought her off with a trip to the bookstore. You know us bookworms -- throw us into a realm of shelves, dust, and binding, and we're good to go. Until it's time to leave, and you realize your mom brought you to the 1/2 priced bookstore for a reason, and won't buy you the 27 Disney Princess books you've so carefully selected.
Fortunately, I had come this far on my Happy!Hapy! trip, that I wasn't going to let a little tantrum slow me down. After a little bartering, we called a truce and left with 3 books, a slightly lighter wallet, and smiles all around. Jax had actually greatly enjoyed himself, throwing his ball on the floor, seemingly just to watch the old suckers perusing the used cd's section bend down to get the ball, hand it to him, and turn around, just to get pelted in the head 2 seconds later. Over and over and over again. Thankfully, they didn't seem to mind, so I didn't mind, either. Happy!Happy!
Once back at the house, Ry raced to see if the neighbors had returned the call, thus allowing her to pack her things and get the hell outta dodge, but unfortunately there were no new messages. We soon discovered why:
That's right. Phone was off the hook for 270 minutes, like 4 hours in real people time.
happy happy happy happy happy...
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