I slept late today and rightly so, I was bushed. I spent the entire day with Max, my 9 year old grandson, the son of Brad, my 40 year old son. Brad and his wife went to the Cardinals game and I am always more than pleased to drop down to Max's age for about 8 hours or maybe even 9 and spend the day with him? He reminds me of things I haven't remembered in many, many years. Like putting your finger into your mouth and popping your cheek while watching TV, kind of a lost art. The highlight of the day was when around 4:30 PM, I lost him, but I'll get to that later.
I just walked into the restroom and noticed that the mirror over the sink was a continuous mass of water spots, as though someone had washed their hands and dried them directly on the mirror. I remember how that one happened. Max had just finish 1/2 a box of Oreos and walked into the TV room and I said, Max, go wash your hands and he did! After washing his hands, he came to me and asked if I had any toothpaste, as he wanted to brush his teeth too. I took him to my bedroom bathroom and offered him a squeeze of toothpaste, but not before he quizzed me on the brand and flavor. I suggested he try it, brush it around his mouth and teeth and if he didn't like it to just spit it out and left him to his own devices. I DID NOT intend on him spitting the toothpaste onto the mirror however! Last night when I went to bed and read for a time, I realized he had turned the room fan to high and investigated my Kindle. If you've ever used a Kindle to read, you know that it doesn't calibrate in pages, but rather it shows percentages of the book already read. I had just spent a week reading a book and I only had about 5% left, about 50 pages. When I picked up my Kindle and started where I had thought I'd left off, it read 77%, meaning that Max had changed my reading spot to where he was strumming through. Ten minutes later, when what I was reading sounded awfully familiar, I realized what he had done and smiled, taking another 20 minutes to find my place.
Normally, I keep at least an ear on Max's behavior, if he's out of sight, but yesterday our cable went out, along with the TV, modem and wi-fi. This all occurred around 5 minutes after Max was showing me that I don't need a remote to operate my DVD player. I'm not accusing him, but just a strange coincidence. I literally had to spend about 2 hours on the phone with Cox. During that time while I was occupied with a lady named Tammi from Cox, in upstate New York, Max was in the bathroom sending me text messages and photos of my shower head from his Kindle Fire, that his grandmother sent him. I think that was around the time that I noticed my kitchen floor was covered with Oreo crumbs and every door frame in the house was showing 9 year old finger prints in dark brown Oreo stains or it could have been from the chocolate covered ice cream sandwich he had. I don't think there were too many times through out the day that Max wasn't eating something, when suddenly he announced he was HUNGRY! I looked at my watch and noticed it was getting close to the time we had to get to his hockey game. I remembered some burgers I had cooked and frozen and he agreed to eat one of those, but wanted ketchup, lettuce and tomatoes on it. Whoops, no lettuce. I don't have lettuce. Men living alone don't eat enough lettuce to have it last for more than one sandwich, so it's too perishable for most bachelors. An actual light ignited over my head as I asked a dumb question. Do you like McDonalds. Max yelled "Big Mac"! We didn't have time to get dressed, pack up his huge bag full of equipment and eat an entire Big Mac, so I suggested a regular burger. Max assured me that he could eat a Big Mac faster than anyone he knew and when we got there, he ate his Big Mac faster than I thought prudent, but including napkin wipes, Max broke every record known to mankind and some women too! I'd say, 2 minutes flat! I was still eating my regular burger when he grabbed my fries and asked if could finish them in the car. As he dragged me out the door of Mickey D's, I was forced to drink my Coke in the car. By the time I got the Volvo into gear, Max's cheeks were full and he handed me the empty fries bag.
As we pulled into the skating rink parking lot, Max was out the door and we needed to get his bag out of the truck. Accomplishing that, we headed towards the front door, when I realized I'd forgotten my sweatshirt. In an effort to keep the ice from melting, the arena is kept at about 55 degrees (guessing) and the last time I almost froze. With Max wheeling his huge bag, I told him to go ahead, I'd meet him inside as I went to get my sweatshirt. I had to walk maybe 15 feet back to my car and grab the sweatshirt and did. When I got inside, Max was nowhere to be found. I started checking dressing rooms, but could not find Max! I believe the word for it would be semi-panic. There were a lot of dressing rooms and a lot more kids. In one dressing room, I told some father that I was looking for my grandson. He asked me what team my grandson was on and of course I didn't know. He asked me how old he was and I said, 9. He asked what his name was and Told him Max. With a smile he said, "well, there's Max, right there!" I apologized and said, "Sorry, wrong Max"! (Imagine that guy trying to pawn off the wrong Max?) I went all over and finally called my son Brad, at the Cardinals game. Of course he couldn't hear me and the call was dropped several times. We were both in noisy arenas with heavy cell phone traffic. I finally got his text saying that Max was #13 and on the Bruins and that Brad would be here in a little while, the football game was over.
At some point, I spotted number 13 on the ice, he'd gotten dressed himself and I was certainly relieved. Just then, Brad walked in with a smile on his face, pointing to Max on the ice and what could have been a disaster was averted. I'd say that off hand, I'd walked/ran about a mile in an indoor arena circling the ice and locker room areas, Great exercise, huh? WHEW!
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