Sunday Aftermath

Try attending a birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese's with a bad cold. A bad cold on the uphill portion of the largest ramp of the roller coaster. Go ahead, try it! I'll wait. Dum dee dum dum... Back? Not very much fun, was it?

It's a measure of how sick I was feeling that at CEC's, the land of the free refill, I didn't want even one soda pop. I just wanted water, and lots of it. I walked around with Kelly when she was doing the 'attractions', stood in line with her to cash in her tickets for cheap toys, and otherwise sat at an empty table reading half-a-paperback (if you wanna freak out a six-year old who's just picking up speed learning to read, rip a paperback in half so it will fit in your pocket).

Several of Kelly's friends were there, including Cesar, whom I mention to illustrate once again how divorced from reality I was. I only discovered after they left that Cesar's parents don't speak English. They smiled a lot.

Kelly brought her HitClip mini-player, and lost it there. I think it disappeared in the ball pit. Kelly spent some time digging among the balls trying to find it, and in a fit of poor judgement I promised that if she didn't find it I'd buy her another one. So she learned a valuable lesson: if you don't take care of your things, Dad will replace them for free.

This segues into the post-party segment of the evening, where I drove to Fred Meyer's to find a replacement HitClip kit for Kelly. But first, I decided if she got a treat, I should get one, so I stopped at Border's bookstore and bought myself a copy of Basic Photographic Materials and Processes. After that, we arrived at Fred Meyer's and hunted until we located the HitClip material. They were out of the 'earbud' players, and only had the microscopic 'boombox' model, which as it turns out, puts out an annoying level of sound.

We finally arrived home, and Jean graciously agreed to assume the bathing chores, so I had a veggie burger and collapsed.

I didn't have any trouble on the drive home, but with the cold and exhaustion, I'd have to say I was definitely not driving with my full faculties. Let's say it was equivalent to driving with a handheld cellphone the whole way. Hey, there's a new impairment scale! On a scale of one to five cellphones, how impaired were you?