Poor, friendless kids

Well, the good news is we haven't segued in2 a flashback yet. The bad news is:

April,

Formerly little sis. My lovely wife, Deanna, has often stated to me that she expects that the reason our children don’t seem to have any friends, is because they are unusually, emotionally attached to inanimate objects. A good example of this occurred the other day. I didn’t witness it myself; but Deanna has pictures.

It was a dark and stormy night, just the time of night when something unexpected could happen. In our case, the unexpected thing was the delivery of our recently-purchased bunk beds. Why they couldn’t come during the day between 9 and 5, as they said they would, who knows? Needless to say, delivery men in Milborough seem to make their own hours when it comes to delivering things. It was so late in the evening, that Deanna was actually home. The ASAP Delivery truck backed into our driveway and my son or daughter was heard to yell, “The truck is here! The new bump beds are here!” As you can tell, my children have almost immediately picked up on my slang term of “bump beds”. Deanna felt she put the statement over with the kids with her well-timed head injury.

Up to the front door the delivery men came. I said to them, “Which one of you is Mr. A Sap?” One fellow said, “Are you trying to call us names?” I said, “No. Your truck says ‘A SAP’?" The deliverymen scowled to themselves and muttered something about puns being the lowest form of humour. But what do deliverymen know. They can’t even tell time.

As they walked down the hall, a silhouette said to them, “Up the stairs, second door on the left, please.” I couldn’t tell if the silhouette was I or not. As the delivery men entered the house with a bed mattress, the whole house seemed to swim in front of me. I could have sworn we had wall paneling in the hallway by the entrance hall and our stairs to the upstairs were right beside our stairs to the downstairs. Yet the paneling was gone, the downstairs stairs were gone. It was almost as if someone had looked at our house and said, “The only thing important here are the stairs and the hall.” I had to go sit down, I was so disoriented.

While I was doing this, Deanna was taking the crib frame out of the house by herself (because she is strong Deanna). She said she used her power of good motherhood to read from the expression on my son’s face he was thinking, “?!”. This means that he was excited and inquisitive at the same time. So, Deanna told me she said, “I’m taking your crib to a friend who’s going to have a baby, Robin…you’re much too big for this now.” There are some that would say perhaps my son is a little slow, because between the conversation I told you about a few days ago, where I told him he was going to a bed with sides or “wif sides” as he calls it; and the trip to the bed store, where we tried out my daughter’s new bed; it didn’t sink in to him that he would have to give up his closest friend, his crib. I suppose he thought the crib would stay in his new room to comfort him and for him to talk to.

Deanna put the crib frame against the wall, and my son said, “Can I hug him goodbye?” Deanna thought this was a breakthrough. She was sure that my son was now able to sever his bizarre attachment to his only friend, the crib. And as mom as trained her, you have to preserve those moments in pictures, no matter how strange they may seem, so that 28 years later you can show them to many other people, who can then confirm how strange it was. To that end Deanna said, “Of course you can! …But let me get my camera first.”

As my son was hugging and weeping over his crib, Deanna told me her thoughts were along these lines: “Where did my neck go? Does my hair in the back really look like it is falling in a sinkhole on the back of my head? Another milestone…another memory.”

It wasn’t until later when we had to pry my son’s hands off the crib as he cried all night long over the loss of his only friend, “Cribby” that we started to realize just how desperately our kids need friends. Fortunately, now my son is in a room all his own, we can lock him in, and stuff towels underneath the door to muffle the sound of his weeping. I don’t think any of us lost any sleep over it, except my son of course.

Love,
Michael Patterson

Aw, poor kids. Since we R doing so well w/Francie's future-therapy fund, mayB we oughta do the same 4 Meredith and Robin?

Apes