Sunday, February 04, 2007

Rad

I have this theory.

I guess it’s sort of a sub theory of Murphy’s Law, if you want to get picky, but it’s held up without exception since I first developed it.

I call it the Mom Pick Up Theory.

If you get done practice early, your mom will be late to pick you up. If you go overtime in practice, your mom will be early to pick you up.

The addendum to it is this: If you get done practice early and you are standing there waiting and waiting and waiting like forever for your mom to come pick you up, then when your mom finally gets there, all breathless and harried – not sure why that is; I mean, how can driving a car make you breathless? – she asks you, “Have you been waiting long?” then your best bet is to say: “No, not really. We just got out.” On the other hand, if you get out late and you walk out to find your mom sitting there in her car all hot and bothered because she had to wait for you, then the best bet is to apologize profusely and tell her how much you love her and appreciate her picking you up, even though it’s really not your fault that practice ran late.

Call it kid survival theories.

I have time to think up these theories on days my mom is late. Like today. Boo is here, too, and he’s not a real patient guy. Right now he’s balancing on the sidewalk railing, pretending to be Tony Hawke or some crap. Half the time, I think the dude is ADD and needs Ritalin. But he is also pretty world savvy, so when my mom actually gets here, he will be real nice to her and she will be all gushing with crap like, “Well, Boover, it is always a pleasure to take you home! Anytime. You know that!” Meanwhile, I’ve had to stand here listening to Boo recreate his fantasy life and moan and complain and tell me how he is missing IM time with his posse. I feel like telling him to shut the f up. If he doesn’t want to wait, walk home! Makes no difference to me. But Boo would never walk anywhere he didn’t have to. And I would never say that to him. He is one of the few friends I actually have here in Delphi. He can be hyper and irritating, but most of the time he’s all right. For a dork dweeb.

Where is my mom?

She knows soccer practice ends at 5. Is it really that hard to be on time to pick up your own kid? I mean, geesh!

Frankly, I am working on turning this all into a well-constructed argument for my getting a cell phone. If I had my own cell phone, then I could just call her when I was done. Or she could call me and tell me how she was going to be forty million years late. I mean, hello, I am twelve! I’m a teenager. Everybody I know has their own cell phone.

Boo had a cell phone, but he lost it. Now his dad is pissed at him and won’t buy him another one. Plus, he lost the IPod Nano he got for Christmas and the PSP his Nanna and Pop-Pop gave him, although we’re not supposed to mention that around them as they are old people and might suffer a heart attack and die or something. So, Boo’s pretty much in the doghouse as far as electronics go. His dad is rich, though, not to mention his grandparents, so I imagine he’ll be getting new stuff before I ever get any original stuff.

I’m going to focus my efforts on the cell phone thing. Focus. Focus. Focus. That’s what Mr. P., the advisor for Juggling Club, always tells us when he’s flinging around his bean bag balls, trying to teach us technique.

“Yo, Rad!” Boo jumped down in front of me, practically landing on me.

“What the -- ! What’s your problem, dickwad?”

He pointed at the street. A dark blue Subaru station wagon had pulled up to the curb.

“About time, man!” he yelled at me before turning around to face my mom with a wave and an angelic-like grin.

“Mrs. B!”

I sighed and picked up my backpack, which must have weighed about forty trillion mega gazillion billion pounds.

“Hi, boys! Have you been waiting long?”

“No, Mom. We just got out like a few minutes ago.”

(A few million minutes ago.)

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