It's amazing how something as simple as a hat can turn you into a bad-ass gangsta. Had I known that, I would have bought a Dick Tracy hat years ago and told Angie to cook me a chicken pot pie, yo. She would have still burned down the kitchen trying, but at least I would have been able to stylishly scowl at her like Peter.
A few hours before we bought Peter's attitude-changing headgear, David was entertaining hotel guests with a breakfast show.
I thought about looking for a hat that could alter David's attitude, but in the end I simply did not want to. He's a jackass by nature, but it's also what makes him
Disco Dave. I also wouldn't want Angie to suddenly figure out how to use a computer. Or cook. Or unexpectedly be able to actually find things. We are who we are, and if you don't appreciate goofy faces complimented by farting noises at the breakfast table, then maybe you should just go jump in the pool.
After jumping in the pool, we decided that at some point during our trip we should leave Mariachi Bay and actually venture into the city. As we approached the bus station, the boys cried out
'Ali Baba' in unison. I should say that Ali Baba was on his free time and less than pickled tink that
Hulu Hulu kid and his wild brothers would be joining him on what he had probably thought would be a quiet bus ride into town.
Kos was the birthplace of Hippocrates and Angie is a natural-born hypocrite, so the pilgrimage to visit her origins was a logical choice. As we got on the bus, David was making faces out the window at a group of local goat herders. Angie screamed at him to stop making silly faces. A few minutes later, I got a rather telling snapshot of the newly nicknamed Queen of Hypocrisy.
I don't actually know what the hell had gotten into Angie and I'm sure you're shocked to read that I didn't care. I was too busy wondering why Ali Baba wanted to sit so far away from Lizard chick and her funny-faced offspring.
After making the other bus passengers seriously consider taxis in the future, we got off the bus and ventured into town. Along the way, Angie busted out an impromptu lesson that even impressed me.
Mama Nature stopped the Wild Scouts and explained to them that the leaves of the Mimosa tree are extremely sensitive to loud children and will curl up when touched. David and Tom then spent the next fifteen minutes yanking on and screaming at this poor tree until the shop keeper came out looking ready to go completely tzatziki on the boys.
Right, move on!
At one point, Tommy became very interested in watches.
'Can I me buy me one?'
'No.'
'Why no?'
'Because you don't know how to tell time.'
'Doch!'
'Doch!' is the German equivalent of
'Yuh huh'. Tommy says it quite often, but in his defense, it's because at the ripe age of three, he already knows everything.
I made the mistake of ignoring him and walked on. About a block later, I turned back to see a rather proud Tommy flaunting his new wrist bling. After some minor screaming lessons on shoplifting and some major apologizing to the shop owner, I was able to keep Sticky Fingers Tom out of a Greek prison.
Like his mother and my wife's father, Tommy can be a bit headstrong. He insisted that he wanted the watch. I counter-insisted that he could have the watch when he could pay for it himself.
'Fine!'
That's right. Our third born took to peddling the streets of Kos to scrape up enough cash to buy a watch. Luckily the people passing by did exactly what I do when Tommy goes off on a temper-rant and simply ignored him. Even lucklier, it was hot as hell and Tommy only lasted three minutes.
Right, move on!
Peter had his manly-man talk yesterday and suddenly demanded a hat that was fitting for a manly-boy who had recently unlocked the secrets of the universe and beyond.
Um, okay.
I tried to keep a straight face as Peter struck a pose on every corner. I haven't watched TV in years, but Peter certainly does. Apparently, all the cool characters nowadays cock their head to one side and squint their eyes. Not sure where the lilac t-shirt comes into play, but as I said - I haven't watched TV in years.
As we walked on, we came across statue after mutilated statue.
At one point, David's curiosity got the better of him.
'Papa, why all those people have no head and no arms - were they bad?'
'Yup. They probably failed to listen to their fathers. Tragic, isn't it?'
Raising a kid would be so much easier if it weren't for opinionated moms with big ears. Angie immediately swooped in, overruled my answer and went on to babble a bunch of Greek history trivia that only Ken and Karen would appreciate.
Who?
Ken and Karen are regulars at the Pub Trivia night that Angie hosts every Thursday. We've also had them over to the house for a BBQ and they passed
'Zoo Indoctrination 101' with flying colors.
Angie sees them every week, so we weren't exactly expecting to see them in Kos. They probably weren't expecting to see us either. Instead, they heard us. Tommy, to be exact. He was screeching away when Karen called out from a cafe.
'Angie?'
'Karen! Hi! What are you doing here? Is it Thursday?'
After confirming that Ken and Karen weren't stalking Angie for an impromptu trivia quiz, we found out that they were island hopping. It's an amazingly small world when you have loud children.
After saying goodbye, we dashed off for our train.
What train?!
Okay, calm down. There was no train. See, we had made a conscious decision to help out the Greek economy by paying outrageous prices for what turned out to be a tour of the city's many, many construction sites on a bus that was dressed up to look like a train.
Um, can I have a receipt, please?
Meanwhile, back at the cool side of the ocean, Peter was still trying to impress the locals as a hat-wearing, head-tilting, lilac-shirt-wearing bad-ass from Deutschland.
62's my prison number, yo.
After knowing myself for more than 38 years, I've grown accustomed to big egos in little bodies and decided that the best course of action was to ignore and feed.
That's right. We had flown all the way to the Greek island of Kos, with all of its wonderful cuisine of exotic fish and fresh seafood, only to cop out and hit the only McDonald's on the island.
After meals that made the kids happy, we went to the bus station. We were thirty minutes early, so I told Angie that I would take the boys on a search to find the super-duper laser-pen toy that some other kid had used at Mini Disco last night. As per usual, Angie ignored me and asked one of the bus drivers at the smoke shack when our bus would be leaving.
I initially thought this to be a completely asinine question, considering that I was clutching the bus schedule in my hand, which clearly indicated a take-off time of 16:30. It was on 15:55, which, according to my brain, meant that we had 35 minutes to find this damn laser pen that the boys wouldn't shut up about.
'You go now. Bus leave now. Bus full. You go now, okay?'
In case you've never read any of our adventures, I can tell you that Angie likes to gloat and her gloat is ugly. As it turns out, the Greek bus system pays absolutely no attention to the schedules. They just park somewhere close to the designated area and when they fill up, they leave. Even if this is 35 minutes before the scheduled departure time and there won't be another bus for four hours.
When we got back from our
'Why did you take us there, there was no pool?!' trip, the boys were a little tired. Peter didn't really sign up to help, but he also didn't kick David off when he jumped on his back for a
'Peter-back-ride'.
After finally getting the wild creatures to bed, I ventured into our bedroom to find a rather interesting development. By
'interesting', I of course mean that Angie started going
'bizerko' again.
In case anyone is wondering what the hell Angie is doing (I sure was), she is drinking a glass of water upside down in an attempt to get rid of hiccups. In case anyone is wondering if drinking a glass of water upside down gets rid of hiccups (I sure wasn't), it doesn't.
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Ladder Talk:
1) What was the best part of your day?
Peter:
That we was in Kos city and that we went to McDonald's.
David:
That we build this cave here.
Tom:
That we could go in the Kinder Disco.
2) What was the worst part of your day?
Peter:
That I slipped and hurt my spine.
David:
That I couldn't jump in the pool.
Tom:
That I fall down on Mama's bed.
3) What would you like to do tomorrow?
Peter:
Jump in the pool.
David:
I wanted to, maybe, just maybe, load a wrestling game on the iPod and maybe buy me another water pistol.
Tom:
Want I look TV.
