Bounce-time for Bonzos

bounce [bau̇n(t)s]: To rebound after having struck an object or a surface.

After living with David for over a year and half, Tom knows all too well the meaning of the word 'bounce'. Until today, though, he only associated the word with pain followed by David's laughter.

The morning started out with a bounce. Kinda. Angie made the mistake of asking me to watch the kids while she snored her way into more beauty. First of all, she doesn't need it; she's not going to get any cuter. Besides, once the animals awaken, it is not humanly possible to fall back asleep. Holy shit! Angie's NOT HUMAN!!!

As if to test the creature in our bedroom who was trying to break the sound barrier, David started tearing through the hallway banging a wooden spoon on a metal pot. Nothing. Peter started blowing a referee whistle that I could have sworn I had hidden in the freezer just last week. Nothing. Tommy took a soccer ball and decided it wanted to get a close-up of Mama's forehead. That worked in waking it up, but I'm not sure if the reaction that followed helped to rule out the whole 'alien monster' theory that I had the boys totally believing. That's not Mama...

Luckily I know the trick to transforming the Predator into a physical appearance that slightly resembles the mother of my children. After the second pot of coffee, we started to plan the day. We agreed on three things:

1) She is lucky to be married to such a considerate and hairy-chested man-beast.
2) We needed to do something with the boys; the smell of energy in the air was frightening.
3) Tomorrow would be my turn to sleep in since I did such an awesome job this morning.

Okay, Angie and I very rarely agree on anything, so 1 out of 3 was not bad. Angie wasted no time in 'organizing' a trip to a park called Fairy-tale Paradise. She even 'arranged' with Shayesteh to bring Artin and meet us there. I know what you're wondering: Hey, man-beast, what's up with all the 'quotations'? Well, as they say, a picture tells a thousand words.


This picture actually only tells one word. It begins with 'S' and rhymes with 'hit'. It was also the word that Angie kept repeating when she realized that she had no signal. See, it's a big park and I had stupidly let the ladies 'organize' things. In their defense, they did 'arrange' to meet up at the park, only they neglected to really nail down the 'when' and 'where' part.

For being so technically challenged, I was surprised that Angie would place so much reliance on a cell phone. In the end, it was Tommy who came to the rescue.


Well, at least Christine will be glad to know that Patrick is not the only train freak in the family. Tom kept grunting and saying super intelligent things like 'kachoo-boo-magoody'. I know it's hard to believe, but at some deep level, Tommy spoke to me. Oh Wise One told me to kick Angie's ass on the train, which went through the entire park, and have Peter's 'eagle eyes' look for another lost woman screaming at her cell phone. We finally found Shayesteh by a sign that read: 'Meeting point for challenged Moms'. I guess this happens a lot.

We celebrated by shooting animals in a cage. Hey, finally an attraction I can relate to.

Peter got as far as pinning his hands beneath the fifty-pound rifle and grinning for help. Angie has spent some time in West Virginia, so she was popping rounds off before Peter could say 'I can't feel my fingers'. David was busy trying to figure out if his head fit between the bars. It did. Seconds later, David was trying to figure out if his head would come back out. It didn't.

As you can imagine, Mr. Sensitive was there to laugh and point fingers. When I tried to take a picture, Angie turned the gun on me.

'Steve! Put that away - he's screaming his head off. Just help him out!'

I secretly think that Angie got her head stuck once and someone took pictures; this would at least explain her completely irrational objections. If anyone reading this has copies of Angie's stuck head, I will pay for them. Somehow, I think I'll pay for them even if nobody steps forward.

After completely missing out certain cash for what would have been the perfect clip for 'America's Cruelest Home Videos', Angie decided it was time to feed the rats.

If I had wanted rats, we would have gone to Disneyland. I didn't even think it was that weird that we saw rodents, I just wished Angie had not encouraged the boys to get it to come back out by feeding it. In the end, even animal crackers could not tempt Fievel to come out of its hole, which made me wonder what the hell those things are made of.

Before I could think of anything other than sawdust and rat poison, the boys had moved on to bumper cars. Angie jumped in the rink to get a couple 'action' photos of the crash-test dummies trying to kill each other, but quickly wimped her ass to the sidelines when she was almost run over twice.

I scolded her for being such a wuss and demanded the camera. This shot - I swear to you - is half a second before David plowed into my ankle. Full speed.


Needless to say, I stopped calling Angie names and limped off to the next deadly rink of pain.


Luckily for Angie, Tommy does not yet know that chariots should be set on fire. He made the Olympic buggy driver do three laps before Romulus and Remus announced to the spectators that they needed the water closet.

After relieving Peter and David, we went for a horse ride, where David once again demonstrated that he likes to things Sinatra-style.

I actually caught Peter checking out David as he goofed around on his horse. I then witnessed Peter attempt one of David's moves, which resulted in him sliding down the side of his horse and frantically grabbing the reins to narrowly get himself safely back in the saddle. When the ride ended, I asked Peter how it was.

'It's a baby ride,' explained Mr. Nonchalant.

'Oh, okay. It's just, I thought I saw you panicking there for a moment when your head almost got caught in the rails.'

'Nope, not me. Maybe it was that kid over there with the blue shirt and the big head.'

Awesome. In that one sentence there was flat-out lying, denial, and deflection of blame on innocent children. Hey, wait a minute...has Davey been coaching you?

David took his role as coach seriously and stayed on the sidelines for the big air bed race.

Peter and Artin completely ignored the coach's shouts to trip each other. When David's suggestions to head butt and elbow the enemy in the eye were ignored, he pretty much gave up on the whole coaching bit and returned from retirement to teach the players how the game used to be. Oddly enough, Peter didn't appreciate Coach David's full-contact version, so he decided to take Tommy on the Power Slide.

It was actually quite cute because Tommy completely froze when it was their turn. He had no problems climbing the three-story ladder to get to the top; he just apparently thought that was exciting enough. Peter finally convinced him with an offer to ride down in his lap. It was so 'big-brotherly' that I almost lost my lunch.

After David and Artin's bounce-n-crunch game, they found Peter and decided to boo the soccer moms.

I don't what the hell Shayesteh did to piss off the spectators, but her reaction prompted Peter to whip out his red card. Shayesteh voiced her disapproval.

Tommy came to Peter's defense and asked the pesky fan to go away; she responded with 'no'.

After thanking Shayesteh repeatedly for Tommy's permanent hearing loss, we moved on to the 'Swing of Death'.

When I got to the scene, Peter was showing off how he could jump off the rotating swings and then jump back on. I told him that he shouldn't do that; it was a stupid idea and he would probably get hurt. I guess Mommy knows best, though, since she advised him to ignore me and continue with his daredevil stunts.

No shit, two seconds later, Peter tried to jump on one of the flying swings, missed, and somehow managed to get his neck tangled in the metal suspension wires. It took me half a second to realize that Peter was being dragged around in circles in a metal noose. It took another half a second for me to jump in and completely break the ride with a perfectly executed manual stop method that I like to call 'Father Freaks out on Runaway Carnival Ride'.

It is quite possible that I completely destroyed the 'Swing of Death', but I'm thinking that parents everywhere with would thank me. Sure, we all want to strangle our kids at one point, but we don't some carnival ride to take away our fun.

After saving my first-born from certain strangulation, I had had quite enough of the Fairy-tale Paradise park. On my way out, I came across this lovely sign.

Holy shit! Is that a horse eating another horse's poop? First rats that don't eat cookies, now this; what kind of sick, twisted park is this? Fairy tales, my ass.

'That's it, Angie - let's go!'

'But the boys wanted ice-cream.'

'Oh. Okay.'

Ice-cream with the boys was fun, if you exclude Tom. See, Tom was a bit indecisive when it came to which flavor he wanted. He actually wanted all of them, and his ear-piercing demands to lick everyone's ice-cream were only surpassed by David's gleeful laughter as he kept taunting and teasing Tom with his ice-pop.

After dessert, we went home for dinner. Artin was spending the night, which somehow meant that Peter and David needed to fight with each other. Don't ask me why; I just know that Artin was to blame.

David started it all out by whipping out his patented 'evil finger' and would not stop pointing it at Peter. He probably did not stop because it was pissing off Peter and this amused David. He was no so thrilled when the ref went straight to red and told David he couldn't play in the after-dinner soccer game that was promised by yours truly.

FIFA may not overrule decisions, but I am not a corrupt organization full of crusty suits that would rather allow shitty-ass decisions than to introduce instant replay. I had no problem telling the ref that his call was not on, which made David laugh. He even got one more finger wag in before lacing up and heading out to the field.

We agreed on the rules before starting. It was one on one, and the third gooftard was the ref. David was on the sidelines for the first game as Peter and Artin fought it out. David loves the color red, so it was not surprising what both players received within minutes of their first kick.

This shot was actually me getting a red card for taking pictures. Artin won the first match and switched places with David. Peter made it halfway across the field before picking up the ball and throwing it at David's head. What he lacks in sportsmanship and understanding of the rules of soccer, he made up for with his ability to throw. The ball pinged off of David's forehead, knocking him to the ground. As luck would have it, the ball bounced into the goal, which prompted Peter to start running circles around David and screaming 'LOSER!'. Peter also has an evil finger.

At least the ref was on ball, who raced up to Peter and gave him a yellow and a red card - 'because that was really mean.'

Peter tried to argue, but Artin just responded with 'which part of red don't you understand?'. It was funny, and I chose to copy Artin when it came time to go back in. Which part of 'get your asses inside, it's time for bed' don't you understand?

After such a long and exciting day, it was no surprise that the three bonzos were actually ready for bed. At least the day ended with a bounce, too. Kinda.

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Ladder Talk:
1) What was the best part of your day?
Peter: As I played 'disconeysian'.
David: When I play foosball and I was the winner.

2) What was the worst part of your day?
Peter: When I couldn't go in my bed 'cause you try with the mattress but there is not so big room.
David: When we needed to go up.

3) What would you like to do tomorrow?
Peter: Play with Artin in my high bed.
David: Play with Artin.