Category Archives: Outings and (Mis)Adventures

Meet the Spartans – or not

On Tuesday, my family picked me up after work on the way to Meet the Spartans. This is a public event for families to shake hands and get autographs from members of our pre-season Top Ten ranked football team.

Arriving at the stadium, we waited in line for some free football posters, full of plenty of white space for autographs.

There were other family-friendly activities at the event. These lines were shorter than the autograph lines, so we decided to knock them off first. The autograph lines would still be there afterwards.

We got our picture taken with the Rose Bowl and Cotton Bowl trophies from the last two years. Then we got some awesome pics of the boys in full gridiron regalia.

2030 Heisman

He looks the part, but judging by his failure to pick his way through holes in the crowd, he’s going to need a good blocker in front of him.

Posing for pictures makes football stars hungry. Since the concessions were being offered much cheaper than can be had at an actual football game, our next mission was to stand in line to get the kids pizza and fries. Watching the kids eat made the parents hungry. Another bout of standing in the food lines left everyone fortified and ready to go grab some autographs.

But first the boys had to visit the spirit tent and pick out some officially licensed merchandise to need desperately. It’s nice they have team spirit, but until they get jobs their foremost loyalty belongs to Team Family Finances.

One of the boys noticed people going down to the field. We couldn’t miss that opportunity, and worked our way through the crowd to a little, roped-off, paved strip, about five feet wide, behind the end zone. We milled about there, each boy tempting authority by letting the toe of his shoe creep over the pavement onto actual football field grass.

Introducing your 2033 Heisman Trophy winner.

Introducing your 2033 Heisman Trophy winner.

Having toe-kissed the grass, it was time to go snag some autographs. On the way, we learned that if we hurried, we could go upstairs and check out the coaches’ booth and the press box. We scurried for the elevator and went up eight floors to the press level. It was an amazing view, even from the window opposite the field; we could make out the dome of the State Capitol.

As we explored the press area, Mommy found a wireless phone charger. Being a tireless devotee of cellular communication, she had to figure out how it worked with her phone. I chased the kids around the press box for a while, returning to find her the unofficial demonstrator of the device to the curious and the low-batteried.

Coming downstairs, we found we’d cleverly outwaited the autograph lines. They were down to nothing, mostly because the players had gone. But we still had some nice posters. Nobody came out of there with posters fresher than ours.

How many autographs did we get?

Zip.

How many players did we even see?

Zero.

But we ate like superstars, we touched extra special grass, and we charged our phone like we owned the place.

It was a pretty special day for young hearts.

 

The children’s menu cut & paste game

Whenever we take the kids out to eat, I feel like I’m playing a game of culinary Tetris, rearranging the meals to fit the appetites of children with varying tastes. If Big Brother isn’t going to eat the fries that come with his cheeseburger, that means Buster and I can share them, which means Buster will only want half his macaroni and cheese, so if I eat half Buster’s mac & cheese, and half of Big Brother’s fries, then I don’t really have to order a meal for myself. But will there be enough left over for Big Man’s burgeoning appetite?

Kids have no conscience when it comes to wasting food, or the money that went to pay for it. As the one who has to make the money cover all our needs, I have a slightly different attitude.

Restaurants seem to have perfected the art of sizing every kid’s meal to be the perfect amount of food for 1.5 children, priced accordingly. This is surely the unconscious factor in our decision to have a third child. Now, all we have to do is work on getting them to agree on two meals to split three ways.

Not how it was meant to be used

“Let me know when you figure out the economics of feeding me. I’ll just be right here under this high chair.”

Playing the mix-n-match restaurant game is even more difficult on vacation. The chicken strips in a strange eatery may differ slightly from home-town cooking, throwing the entire table into rebellion. The serving sizes are a wildcard, and the prices are sure to be higher. God forbid it’s one of the fancy-pants joints that cuts their fries on site or has a notion that pizza is something that should be reinvented.

It is especially difficult when Daddy can’t read. This happened on our most recent visit to Washington D.C. So full of himself at finding a burger joint amidst the upscale restaurants, in which feed himself and the two older boys, Daddy decided the menu said what he wanted it to say, rather than what it said.

Using his best gastronomic puzzle-solving skills, Daddy deftly planned out the purchase that would feed all three perfectly, and for only about $12. He confidently approached the counter and ordered the cheeseburger with fries and the macaroni and cheese. He was met with a blank stare. After an awkward moment, the young cashier explained, “We don’t have macaroni and cheese.”

“Of course you do,” Daddy remonstrated. “It’s on the menu.”

The young lady screwed up her face. “There’s no macaroni and cheese on the menu.”

Daddy probably rolled his eyes as he grabbed a nearby menu and promptly pointed out the line that clearly indicated the availability of grilled cheese sandwiches. “Hmmm,” he hawed. “I could have sworn that said macaroni and cheese.”

It’s hard to be quite as deft about plan B when you’re on the spot.

Thirty minutes, and $29 later, they exited, carrying a doggie bag containing a completely untouched grilled cheese sandwich and nearly two full orders of leftover fries.

I guess Daddy’s brain went on vacation too.

The great, golden ecdysiast in the sky

Saturday was our university’s spring football game. They divide the team in two and have an open scrimmage in the stadium. It’s not a nail-biter as far as sporting events go, but it’s getting to be a big event. It’s free and some universities bring in upwards of 100,000 fans. Ours was closer to 50,000 fans.

We weren’t among them. We were at a more important game: the second game of the first-grade spring soccer season.

I like watching Big Brother play soccer. He may not be headed for a professional career, but he likes playing. Watching him celebrate when a teammate scores a goal is worth the price of admission.

The price of admission is herding him and his brothers to the car and getting to the field on time. Not always an easy price.

New Baby fell asleep on the way, so Mommy stayed in the car with him. I spent the first half carrying Buster, so he wouldn’t run off to the adjacent playground.

It was a good game; everybody was into the action. Then Buster pointed to a small plane in the distance. As the plane neared, we could see it was trailing an advertising banner.  Buster had never seen this before, so it captured his attention. He pointed to the banner and asked what it was.

I started to explain, then lost my words as I realized the banner was advertising a local “Gentlemen’s Club.” The blonde girl-next-door-type, flapping in the wind at 1000 feet, stood next to the all-caps “SHOWGIRLS” declaration.

One by one, people began to look up. Coaches began smiling at each other. The game slowed down until it crawled to a virtual stop.

grounded stripper

Just imagine what Nettie might have accomplished behind an airplane. She was a victim of her own era.

The plane passed over and the enchanting lady in the sky diminished in our sight until she almost seemed merely two-dimensional. Buster told me the plane was going away and wasn’t coming back. He was right.

I’m glad Big Brother was in the game; otherwise I would have had to explain what a showgirl is. Buster can’t read, so all he saw was a plane pulling a big piece of paper. And that was enough.

The promotion couldn’t have been for us. Some of us are too innocent for that sort of thing, and the rest get their allowances mostly in quarters. I’m not sure how SHOWGIRLS feel about being tipped with change. Maybe if you warm it up sufficiently first, it’s all right, but I’d bet they prefer paper money.

I figured we were between the spring football game and the airfield. Otherwise, this advertiser wasn’t getting much bang for his buck. It was an inspiring message though; Big Brother scored a goal soon after. This is something he rarely does when not encouraged by heavenly blondes.

Buster had seen an airplane, and that was all he was going to get out of the game. He dragged me off to the playground for the second half. Meanwhile, Mommy slept in the car with New Baby and the iPhone. Nobody even got a picture of the pretty woman flying through the sky.

Unexpected shortfall in U.S. cheese sauce reserves triggers chaos in pasta futures market

Last Friday, my wife had a date with a younger man. She took our six-year-old to a Mother-Son event at school.

With Mommy and Big Brother gone, Buster, New Baby, and I were left to our own boys’ night out. Incidentally, New Baby turned 1, so we should probably invent a new nickname.

I gave Buster the choice between his three favorite foods (i.e. things he will eat) for dinner: pizza, chicken strips, or mac & cheese. After a half hour distracted by LEGOs, he chose mac & cheese.

Normally, I would grab the elbows and the block of Velveeta and get to work, but since Big Brother was getting his night out, I decided we would go to Panera for dinner.

The anti-Panera

Not all fancy-pants like Panera, but the kids like it, especially when I sprinkle in some actual cheese.

We’d already discovered we cannot afford to feed the entire family at Panera. The misleading appearance of the go-up-to-the-counter-and-get-your-food-yourself façade of affordability crumbled during our first visit.

But we would only be getting a kid’s mac & cheese and a little something for me to share with New Baby. This was our chance to enjoy Panera on the cheap.

I got a half Panini and a half mac & cheese to go with Buster’s kids’ mac & cheese. We opted for water from the fountain. This was gonna be awesome; we were gonna do Panera on McDonald’s funds.

Can you hear the buzzer? That loud, long one that sounds like WROOOONG!

Two little bowls of macaroni and half a flat sandwich: $15.23.

As we went to get our water, Buster said, “I no want water. I want juice.”

“They don’t have juice here,” I lied. None that your kind can afford, I thought.

Even the water at Panera must be made from gold. They allow you a dental rinse cup. That’s fine for the kids, but since I’d be filling up on water tonight, I’d like a bigger cup.

You know how some restaurants make up for higher prices with large portions?  You know, a kid’s plate of chicken fingers an adult couldn’t finish? Panera has never heard of those places.

Buster’s and my dishes were the same size. They each contained about as much macaroni as he can hold in one of his three-year-old hands.  My $4.79 half Panini came out 21 cents short of a dollar per bite.

mining for pasta

Panera employees digging out precious nuggets of macaroni.

New Baby ate most of my macaroni and some of my sandwich. He was still hungry. I asked Buster, the skinny kid who never finishes his dinner, if his brother could have some of his. “No!” he replied, protecting his rare and precious noodles with his arms.

“Please.”

He sighed. “One.” Raising his index finger, he stressed, “One macaroni.”

After that, I resorted to scraping up the remaining cheese sauce from my bowl for New Baby.  That sauce was probably worth upwards of $3 on the open market and I felt fiscally irresponsible for overlooking it before.

There's cheese in them thar hills

Little-known fact: When cheese sauce is first pumped out of the ground, it has a dark color. It only acquires its lighter hue during the dangerous and expensive refining process.

Buster’s kids’ “meal” came with a little tube of yogurt. I’ve never seen him attack a side item with such greed. He twisted that tube into a knot eking out every last bit of sustenance.

We cleaned our plates as if our food were made of silk and pearls, which are probably less expensive per ounce. Then I did the wholesome, fatherly thing: I took them to get filled up on ice cream.