Thursday, July 16, 2009

Crazy like a frog

My family and I try to do an outing to Pike Place Market a couple of times a year. We always go on Christmas Eve, and usually again sometime during the summer. Well, today was the summer installment. The four of us loaded into the old Kia minivan, which, I must admit, I look super cool driving.
Today, as we walked along the streets of Seattle, I pointed something out to Zoe. She quickly grabbed my pointing arm and put it back at my side. "What are you doing?" I asked her. She told me that we look like tourists when we point. "So what?" I replied. "Well," she continued. "I don't want to look like a tourist. I want to look like I live here."
"How can you look like you live here?"
"By not pointing." Huh, that makes sense. So, we proceeded on our way, not pointing, ever.
Of course, the first thing we had to do was eat, because Zoe, being fourteen, hadn't eaten anything for about 15 minutes, and she was extremely weak with hunger. Fortunately, we were able to locate a meatloaf sandwich with cheddar, onions, pickles and ketchup sauce (no, not ketchup) mere seconds before Zoe resolved to eat part of her arm.
With that disaster averted, it was time for the girls to spend their hard-earned allowances. Lauryn previously had established a tradition of visiting one of the booths in the market which sold huge bean bag frogs. On our last trip she bought one that weighed about ten pounds, which she named "Fatty." Makes sense. This time she was on a quest to find "Mrs. Fatty." And there she was, a fabulous orange color to compliment the vibrant blue of the original Fatty. Lauryn picked her up and cradled her. Naturally, since my job as father is to be the eternal buzz-kill, I asked Lauryn if she was willing to tote a ten-pound bean bag frog around the market for another hour or so. She pondered this issue for about ten seconds, put Mrs. Fatty back, and picked up a much smaller Frog.
"This is junior, " she announced. "Junior is Fatty's adopted son. He was found by Fatty in the pouring rain after his mother abandoned him because she was crazy." Wow. Another frog made a statistic by mental illness.
We traipsed about for a while longer, weaving through the sweaty masses of Pike Place, and finally decided we looked a little too much like tourists. Time to get out fast.

2 comments :

  1. Hopefully you weren't wearing a fanny pack and a button down shirt with flowers all over it.

    ReplyDelete

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.