Two Drink Minimum

by

Sandra Deden

I admit it. I'm raising a pansy. I'm a big, lefty, commie liberal, my son's guardians are gay and my happiest parenting moments are when my 4-year old son asks me to decorate his room or when he cries at being dirty.

As you might imagine, this requires some effort on my part to block out the rest of the world. Between having my artist friend and her son over, and Lucas's own reluctance to have the kids from his preschool class over, I managed to create the bubble of the world I wanted for four wonderful years. Then It came. The Invitation. One day Lucas came home from preschool and announced: “Paul says I can can go over to his house.”

I'd had some training for this moment. We'd already attended two birthday parties of the kids at school.. The first mother said she loved my bumper sticker “Straight but not narrow.” The second party was hosted by two nice, liberal Jewish parents. So far, so good.

[say something about the rain] So, I was not afraid of Paul's invitation. I met his mom during drop off time in the morning, and we exchanged phone numbers. She called that weekend, and I thought: OK, I'm ready to crack open the bubble. They lived close by, and when we pulled up to their apartment building, I approved. No pretense or McMansion here. Paul's mother opened the door, and his dad stood behind her. We stepped in and exchanged greetings. The boys eyes each other with momentary bashfulness. And then my bubble tore wide open.

Within minutes the boys were using Paul's squirt guns to “kill the bad guys.” Lucas came running over to me, eyes wide. “Paul has guns, mommy!” I could see the pleasure in his face from his full frontal encounter with forbidden fruit. My liberal tongue stayed still [better] and vertigo set in as the sound of an unwatched non-PBS cartoon assaulted my ears , and the boys created a make believe mayhem.

As they chased and killed bad guys, I shifted my shocked gaze and plastic smile to toward the parents—sitting on the couch and smiling at me. If only they were ogres, mean terrile , gun-loving malcreants. But they weren't. She worked in an insurnace agency. He was a glazer. But then the cracks in their faced started to show: As We talked about the difficulties of raising a 4-year-old, she mentioned that she spanked him. I clutched my tea like a life boat, and managed a noncommittal, “Mmmm.”

Not long after that they told the story of how they'd pulled Paul out of the school where he was twice because they were unhapy with one of the teachers, who complained she couldn't control Paul. A loud banging emanated from Paul's room. Then the boys careened in and out of the living room and then flew into Pauls room, banging his door loudly at each pass. Lucas ocassionally stopped by my chair to report on the goings on. Chasing bad guys, pretending to be super man. Lucas then announced, “Mommy, we're killing all the bad guys!” I called after hime, though the gaping hole in the bubble, “Can't you just put them in jail?” Paul's mother constant told him to stop running and I asked Lucas to stiop running. Paul did not and Lucas did his best to listent o me, but he ended up half running behind Paul anyway.

Meanwhile his father continued the story of Paul's twice removal from the school. They pulled him and put him into a smaller a home daycare situation, that turned out to be mostly girls. “When he saw the EZ Bake oven on TV and wanted one, I though, all right, what's wrong with this picture. Paralysis began to set in at that point, and I could only lamely reply, “Well, it is nice to have a balance –it's hard if it's all one or the other.” MY mother, the one who taught meto say nice things no matter what the situation. Pointed out that lots of famous chefs were men.

The shreiking continuedas I strated to float out of my body to survey the damage to the bubble. Total hull breach, as they say on Star trek. [more description—funny].

As I finalized my survey the boys ran head on into each other, wnet down, Lucas hitting the back of his head on a sharp corner. I rushed back into my body and then flew back out a second later as blood trickled down his neck. Andy, the nurse, and Pauls' parents, who were experienced in goignt o the emergency room with Pual took over. Pauls' dad said matter-of-factly, perjhaps with a hint of manly satisfaction, “Yep, that's going to need sticthces.” Andy was trying to get a good look and Sue was horrified. I held lucas tightly and awaited orders, not quite beliveing I was going to have to enounter another pareting milestone, “First Trip to the ER” I do tend to be an overahceiver though, so the about an hour and ahalf after achieving the the milestone of First Visit to a School Friend's House, we were on our way, in the pouring rain to the ER, Sue leading the way, Andy drivving and me next to Lucas trying to tell him a palatable truth about where we were going and what was going to happen to him.

The blood stopped after about 10 minutes and Lucas was fairly calm when we arrived at the ER. Within 10 more minutes he was chatting like his normal self while Sue and Andy and I made strained small talk, Sue being overly nice to prove she wasn't a bad person, and me being overly nice to prove I didn't blame her. At least not to her face.

Of coourse, I tried to collect the remnants of the buble, and shore them up somehow, but it was too late. The nurse asked Lucas his favorite TV show, and as Lucas, the PBS poster child, thought a momet, she blurted out “Rugrats?” a commercial show. Then in the triage area, the TV was on and “Friends” was on. At that point, I knew it was over and I gave in and stopped worrying about what was on. Lucas got four staples to seal up the rip in his head. I should be so lucky. They don't make staples for the bubble.

When we got home, I downed a beer. After I finished it I realized one wasn't goignt o cut it. So I had anaother. Andy saw the second beer in my hand and said, “Kind of a two-drink minimum kind of day, huh?”

I drank all week long, felt like a have slept for days. Lucas of course was really non worse for wear with the staples or the burst bubble. He became quite the BMAS (big man at school) as kids clustered around him and wanted to see and touch his staples. My bubble was not so easily repaired, nor were my lefty liberall commie friends eager to see the bubble in tatters. No permanent damage seemed to result to lucas as a result of his encounter with Paul. I wish I could say the same.