White Lightning Axiom: Redux

Its the last day of vacation and once again I woke up with a migraine. This is most likely because I was up late watching TV in bed. Its a bad habit with predictably undesirable effects. Bad habits are hard to break. The next morning, I played the part of a 'warm body' in the kids play room. They don't like being alone and prefer to have either the Mrs or myself present. In the state that I woke from, I was not much use to be anything other than an immobile target for the kids. They were mostly satisfied and the Mrs could take the time to shower up and fold some laundry.

Later in the day, we set out of the Greater Sphere of Influence of the Haupertonian Empire to shake off the cabin fever. First things first, we had to stop off at the bank to deposit the various red envelopes that the kids had received at the Holiday Party. I parked the Family Tank in the adjoining parking lot of Starbucks. As the kids watched the Mrs walk off, they begin to wail and howl that mommy had left them with the evil-bad-guy-hardass daddy. Argh, I got out of the command seat and hunkered down with the kids to keep them distracted till soft-sell-pushover-mommy came back from depositing the multi-million dollar rewards. As we waited, I could smell the coffee from Starbucks ... it was calling me. I know, Starbucks a big homogenized corporate coffee pimp, but that is what I like about it. The coffee is exactly the same every time, ever where I get it. No surprise, no awful bitter metal taste, no thin and tepid back-water joe. It's exactly what I expect for my 5$. It's too much to resist. Once the Mrs returns, I run in and grab myself a quad mocha late venti. Mmmmm, caffeine. Upon my return, I find that the Mrs has given each of the kids a cookie that she got from the bank. How nice, a steady supply of sugar for the two little sucrose addicts. They make short work of the treats and are soon screaming for more.

We went off to Walmart to pick up some Robutussin for the kids. Yeah, yeah. Yet another evil corporate monster. Of course, since I am the evil corporate daddy, it fit right in. The place was mobbed with the curdled cream of the crop. I could not get out of there fast enough. As I was standing in line to cash out with the three boxes of expectorant and decongestant, Jake was occupying himself with flirting. The grandmotherly woman behind us was enjoying the attention and forgot about the addle-minded woman in front of us. She had just complained to me moments before about the silly woman who the cashier was becoming quite tired with as well. She had bought 7 items and after the purchases had been rung up, decided that one of the items was too expensive and they had to go through each one and decide which it was. Then, with that done, the whole set of items had to be re-scanned and paid for. She apparently forgot how to use the card swipe and had to be reminded repeatedly to follow the instructions. Argh. As I try to avert my death-ray eye-beams, I spy a couple varieties of beef sticks in the check-out line that I caught Jacob eyeing up. Actually, unless his grubby little hands have eyes, he was actually grabbing a fist full of them from the rack. I replace the extra-nuclear red hot sticks that I manage to extract from Jakes hands through trickery and select two teriyaki flavored sticks. Upon returning to the car, I open each and give them to the kids. They are about the thickness of my index finger and roughly a foot long. By the time we get to Giant Supermarket, they are nearly gone. Either they are starving to death or they really enjoy meat products. I prefer to believe in the second. I need no genetic tests to know that they are indeed my kids.

We enter giant to pick up a few minor things and the Mrs was interested in returning a couple items. The place was totally packed. The Mrs spent her time with Alexis, trying to keep people from cutting in line in front of her while I headed to the back meat section to see if there were any manager specials to be had. When I got there, it was a mob scene. A bunch of half-dead zombies gorging on the raw meat as sinew dangled from their shattered maws and bones crunched between their dagger like teeth. Ok, not quite, but there were a lot of people. I made a bee line to the front so as to facilitate an escape from the Lovelacelike scene, never looking back.

Back in Haupertonian Territories, we gave the kids lunch and a movie ... then off to nap. I spent their down time collecting mastodon droppings from the back 50. There was one that I had to leave behind since the back-hoe could not lift the whole thing. I need to figure out some alternate energy solution for all of this ... stuff. I then decontaminated myself and assisted the Mrs in some snack preparations for the party we were going to attend tonight at the Seliga's outpost. A tray of cheese, a tray of meat (of course), some fudge, cheesecake leftovers and a tin of cookies. That should do just fine. Grab the bottle of champagne and ice wine, toss it all in the Family Tank and then go wake the kids. It was already 1730 and we wanted to feed them dinner before we drove over so they would not spend the night eating sweets and chips. It's going to be a zinger of a night.

# posted by mdmhvonpa @ 1:21 PM