On the way to bringing the kids into school on Friday Aiden said to me “they don’t talk about God at all in our new school.” (the kids were now in a public school after spending their entire scholastic career in a Christian school). I responded by telling him that they can’t talk about Jesus in their school because that would be promoting one religion over another which is prohibited by the Constitution (at least I think it is). Aiden went on to say that he routinely asks people if they are Christians, which in his defense is probably one of the lest awkward things he does around strangers and a really good strategy for making friends at his new school. Parker went on to ask me a much a much simpler question “Dad, do they teach you to kill people in military school?” After dropping the kids off at school I had to jet to Hudsonville to handle a drunk driving case where the officer, upon pulling my client over, discovered that she had spilled food all over her chest. Unfortunately, the officer did not elaborate in the police report as to what culinary delight was spilled on her chest but I am going with Nachos Bell Grande.

It’s unusual that I spend much time in the office on a Friday but I found myself there for most of the morning and headed home around 1 so I would have plenty of time to prep for my afternoon outdoor hoop run. I have taken charge of organizing the outdoor runs since Covid hit and made a mistake a seasoned veteran should not make. I ended up panicking and inviting people before all the invitees had weighed in as to their status. Ideally we have 12 show up, but we ended up with fifteen, which would have been fine had a complete rando not surfaced during the middle of the first game. The guy was wearing track pants and no shirt and decided to insert himself into the mix even though it was obvious no one wanted him to join as evidenced by none of the fifteen of us making eye contact with him. I get it, you have no friends, your gym has been closed for six months, and you just want to hoop. However, it was quite evident that our run was a group of guys who knew each other and it had been put together ahead of time. That being said, what do you do? The answer should have been tell him he can’t play. On top of being a rando, he was an obnoxious rando who made Kyrie Irving seem like a team player. Fortunately for me, he managed to get under the skin of not only me, but also the nicest guy who plays with us. Even more fortunate for me, the nicest guy decided to verbally attack him so that I didn’t have to do so (the rando was a lot bigger than me).

The 15mph swirling wind and the fact that the rando showed up on top of invitees taking it upon themselves to invite additional players led to a very forgettable day until I was packing up and heading to my vehicle. We had an additional rando show up who took the originally rando’s place, but instead of being the second coming of Kyrie Irving mixed with Rosie O’Donnell he was a quiet version of Karl Malone, but white and not nearly as good. The new rando, named Pete, and I were talking as everyone was dispersing, when a dude in weenie benders and a polo rolled up and asked “you guys ready to ball? I played in high school and I’m pretty good.” Pete let it slip that we had just got done playing which led to “do you guys play here regularly? What time?” Had Pete not avoided answering the question we would have been forced to find a new hoops venue. Thankfully instead he told him that there is a run at night typically and that people start arriving around 5:30. Captain weenie benders then focused his attention on me and asked “what are your favorite basketball shoes? I like Nike Zooms, they are nice and light.” I don’t like to talk to people even when I shoot 80% form behind the arc and win all my games, when my shooting percentage is in the teens and I only muster one victory I turn into Oscar the Grouch. (also I was certain there had to be a hidden camera somewhere) I didn’t really give him much of a response so he just kept moving forward “Oh, I see you have some Jordan’s there, do you like those?” I realized that I was either going to have to make a run for my car or engage him, and the fact that I couldn’t find my Apple Watch left option one out of the question. “I like them but I have been trying some other shoes as well, I actually have been wearing Adidas lately on top of Nike’s” “So, Kobe’s?” If it wasn’t obvious this guy was a moron to begin with, it was now, Kobe hadn’t been with Adidas since mid range jumpers and defense were all the rage. Thankfully I was able to locate my watch and get the heck out of there, but not before the dude stripped off his polo and began to go to work on his jumper.

When I returned home I discovered that the kids hover boards had arrived and Shirley was in the process of assembling Aidens while Parker was trying his out. To Shirley’s credit this was not a random purchase for the kids, this was a half birthday present, or in Aidens case a 5/6th birthday present since his birthday is in November. Her logic is that since both of the kids have birthdays during inclimate weather months they should be given their birthday presents when it is warm. This is something that has been passed down from her mom who would buy Shirley and her siblings presents months before their birthdays, even when we were just dating I remember Shirley getting a vacuum months ahead of her actual birthday. A vacuum is a gift that can be given and immediately used any time of year so I’m not sure what the logic was, if any, in Shirley receiving the gift well before her birthday. Furthermore, my birthday is in February, but I would have never been able to make the warm weather argument with my parents because my presents sucked no matter what time of year I would have received them, and being able to play with them immediately during the summer wouldn’t have enhanced there value to me. Did a lot of other kids have shitty childhoods? Of course they did, but it didn’t make me feel better about it then nor does it now. What’s great about this half birthday thing for the kids is that they will still get a bunch of presents from Shirley on their actual birthday, it’s what you call a win win as opposed to everything that happened in my child hood which was a lose lose.

Shortly after the hover boards were assembled Shirley brought Parker over to his friend Carl’s (not his real name)house for a sleep over. While it is nice to split the kids up every once in a while so that one of them (Parker) doesn’t kill the other in their sleep, whenever one of them is away the other sleeps in our bed. This means that I don’t even have a shot at talking Shirley into some business time, but sometimes knowing it isn’t going to happen ahead of time is actually better than knowing it isn’t going to happen when you are in the process of trying to make it happen. That being said, we ended up watching the first Matrix, which is rated R, but the internet said was suitable for kids around 12. Due to the fact Aiden is almost ten and has the maturity of a six year old we made the executive decision to let him watch it. The entire movie he kept saying “I don’t know why this is rated R.”

Parker was dropped off the following day and it was determined without any input from me that Carl was going to stay over. This was problematic for a couple of reasons. First of all, Carl and Parker typically go after one another like rabid dogs when they have been together for more than 24 hours and two, I don’t like Carl. I don’t like most kids, but I really don’t like Carl. Whenever Carl doesn’t get his way he threatens to go home, which is fine by me, but he lives twenty minutes away so it’s an empty threat but one that illustrates what a spoiled dick he can be. He threatened to go home when we were going to watch a movie he didn’t like and did so randomly at least three other times. Fortunately, Sunday morning he made the threat for some unknown reason and we took him up on it and immediately shuttled him home. We decided to go to breakfast after dropping him off and everything went well until the bill arrived. I have gone out to eat so infrequently that my tip math is way off, I almost left twice the tip for our waitress due to my infrequency of having to calculate 8% (just kidding, I’m a generous tipper, at least in Dutch circles). I scratched over the initial tip and put down the correct one with very little room to spare, that was a close one and likely something that would have haunted me all the way up to the Lions blowing another sizable 4th quarter lead had I not caught it.