Adult Costume Shopping.

It was beautiful Sunday. The Weather was sunny and hopes for a great day were high. The morning started off innocently enough and I even took the time to make eggs for the beasties. And toast.

Frozen waffles and syrup are for weekdays when we can run out of the house as the nanny arrives before the bath salts that are sugar kick in and faces get eaten. There could have been a tantrum or two before we got to the car and our routine 'weekend adventure' began but I was happily not taking notes as I hadn't yet been kicked in the groin.

First up was our family obligation to visit the University Village shopping.. 'Mall'?  It's basically an egregiously overpriced outdoor strip mall that carries 99% of the crap you can buy online. It DOES, however, allow you to drag your beasties along for the fun of it. Screw internet shopping. Plus they have a covered playground to expunge you of guilt for dragging the kids on a shopping trip. We do this EVERY weekend. FML.

After 30 minutes at Banana Republic (did I mention FML?) we boogied over to the playground for a bit of kid time activity. After about 20 minutes, I realize we'd worn our luck out and a kid on kid confrontation was imminent (that I'm going to run away from) So... It's lunch time! Yippee!!

Off we go- food is disposed of, some of it in my kids bellies, some of it on the floor, some inevitably in my lovely wife's purse.

Here's where the day turned into 'Dad's gonna get drunk tonight'....

We had a birthday party to go to the next weekend. It's a costume party. 1920's. There no faking that stuff. Its now close to 3:00. We decide to skip naps and forge ahead to secure costumes for my lovely wife and myself at the risk of putting our kids on tilt. In hindsight, boy did we.

Upon arriving at the 'Vintage Costume Shop' parking lot I noticed we were basically in a driveway. Like, someones house kinda driveway. There was a dusty redish Camaro and and a 1950's era Ford pickup quasi parked in front- both in questionable working order. I joked to Sarah that we were walking into the set of Paranormal Activity 4. That didn't go over well with her from the stare I got.

Upon entering the shop, which was in fact a dillapitated turn of the century craftsman home, I realized my assumption wasn't far off the mark. The place smelled like a homeless person took a dump in a bucket of horse urine, then paused to smoke a carton of Parliaments before throwing up.

To top it off it the owners had turned hoarding into a business. There was NO room in this place. Before I got my bearings, Miller disappeared. Literally, he was invisible being about 3 feet tall- there were little corridors carved into this hell hole and crap was either hanging or stuffed into shelves, ceiling to floor. By the look on the owners face, I know he at least got a glimpse of Miller- his furrowed brow told me as much.

 I spent equal time trying to find an outfit and trying to police the constant flutter of fabric that would swirl past me at waist level. After 30 minutes, I couldn't take any more of the madness and threw whatever I had picked out on the counter area- I had to get the kids out of there. My lovely wife was lost in another generation and in a fitting closet trying on 30 pound sequin flapper dresses- one painful outfit at a time.

The Beasties and I went out to the yard. They were in another dimension of rowdy, pissed-offness that I had not ever thankfully seen before. Miller was running around like a wild man while also trying to inflict as much harm on Quinn as possible. It reminded me of a swarm of bees, 3 minutes of spastic exertion followed by a flyby to swat his sister at full speed, followed by more spacsticness. rinse repeat.

I was doing absolutely nothing about this because a short while earlier, I remembered I gave Miller my keys when we first walked into the door. I had frisked him on the way out and he was clean.

I spent the next 10 minutes going inside to look for keys to back outside refereeing an MMA match on the front lawn. Quinn was in the wrong weight division but was putting up a valiant effort.

I was now on my hands and knees in the yard assuming Miller had flung the car keys away during one if his spastic episodes. Ah- HA! I found them and looked up at the progress of the grappling show- just to see Miller catch up to Quinn at a full sprint and whack the back of her head. By the time I got to her he had smashed her face on the grass so hard her lip was bleeding and I was seconds away from being a Jerry Springer candidate for reckless endangerment of my kids.

I don't recall the message I left on Sarah's cell once we were in the car but it did make her come running out to the car in mere seconds.

Costume shopping is for adults only.