To avoid thinking about it, I go home and collapse into bed, and fall into a blissful, twelve-hour sleep.
The plan is for Jet and me to take the ladies and kids to Swope Park to explore the Nature Center and burn some energy outside during the late morning and early afternoon while his dad and brothers spend their kid-free time on the golf course.
After enjoying some alone time at my place when Jet picked me up earlier, I asked him why he wasn’t golfing with the guys. He paid close attention to buttoning his shirt while sitting on the side of my bed, then answered, “I suck at golf.”
I tugged on a pair of jeans and a V-neck t-shirt that didn’t seem too wrinkled. “So? It probably makes them feel really good to be better than you at something.”
“I don’t like being a loser. Puts me in a bad mood. We’ll catch up with them later, when the others go shopping. Unless you want to do that, too.” He zipped his shorts and slid his feet into his suede shoes.
“No! I mean, no, that’s okay.” I was selfishly relieved when Jet chose not to join his dad and brothers on the links. Not only can I not play, but I suspect I wasn’t even invited, to begin with. That would have put me in the awkward position of bowing out of the childcare duties, also not my forte, at the park, alone with his mom and sisters. But I would have. Because we’re definitely not there yet. I’m not going anywhere with Jet’s family without him.
We’ve been at his house for nearly an hour now, waiting for the moms and kids to be ready for departure. I try not to think too much about how he and I could have better utilized this time at my place. Rather, I stay out of the frantic fray, flipping through the latest issue of ESPN The Magazine from the coffee table.
Finally, Gidget, standing on the landing between the stairs to the second floor and the basement, shouts, “The train leaves in five minutes! If you’re not in the car, you don’t get to go to the park. Let’s move!”
Children scurry from both directions, tripping over each other in their haste.
Gloria tuts. “Why do you insist on bellowing everything, Gidget?”
“It gets results, Ma,” she replies, nodding to the line of kids at the front door and tossing a set of keys at Jet. “You’re taking one group. I’ll follow you.”
He twirls the keys on his finger. “Who’s riding with Maura and me in the cool kids’ car?”
Five hands shoot into the air. The sixth one is quick to follow, as he blindly imitates his older brother and cousins. “Meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!”
Gidget pulls her daughter’s hand down. “You’re coming with me, Miss Thing, after that stunt you pulled at breakfast.”
Jet widens his eyes and winces. “Oops. Guess we missed something there. Okay. Maura and I have the other big kids, then.”
“You’re probably going to want another grownup in the back,” Lucy suggests.
“Pshaw. We don’t need no stinkin’ grownups, do we kids?”
“Noooooooooo!”
Gidget sniffs. “Jet’s right; it’s best that all the kids go with him. It’s only fair. As a matter of fact,” She pushes the breakfast troublemaker back in line. “I’ll think of some other punishment for you. Go ahead with Jet and Maura.”
Jet sticks out his tongue at Lucy. “It’s unanimous. You have to go in the boring car. Better luck next time.”
She rolls her eyes at him and smirks. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Jet grabs my hand and pulls me through the crowd to the front door. “Okay, dudes and dudettes. Let’s roll.”
After the longest twelve minutes of my life, we pull into the parking lot of the Nature Center. Jet parks the SUV, pulls the keys from the ignition, and simply stares at me while the bedlam continues behind us. The look of utter betrayal on his face both breaks my heart and cracks me up. He soon follows my lead, but his laughter sounds more rueful.
Realizing the vehicle has stopped, the little monsters spring their seatbelts, hop down from their boosters, and start banging on the safety-locked doors and windows.
“Ow! Gage pulled my hair!”
“Patience stepped on me!”
“Milo’s looking at me!”
“I’m hungry!
“I hafta poop!”
“I want my mommy!”
“Sounds like the locker room back there,” Jet says, making me laugh harder. Then he shouts over his shoulder, “Hey! What the heck? Everyone sit down and shut up.”
“Ummm! Uncle Jet said ‘shut up.’”
“That’s a bad word!”
“You’re mean!”
“You’re not my friend!”
“Tell that weird girl to stop laughing at us!
“I hafta poop! Now!”
Jet runs his hand through his hair. “This is unbelievable. They all used to be so cute, and they loved me. What happened?”
“Oh, how quickly the tide of popular opinion turns,” I half-joke.
Without warning, Jet whirls in his seat and startles the malcontents silent with a wide-eyed glare and flared nostrils. Outside the vehicle, the adult females peer through the windows.
“What’s going on in there?” Gidget says through the glass next to Jet’s shoulder.
He ignores her and continues to stare down the backseat contingent. Finally, after several seconds, he opens his mouth to make his proclamation, then closes it, sniffs, and says, “Aw, man! Did someone have an accident?”
A little voice replies, “I tole you I hadta poop!”
Jet and I spring from the vehicle like it’s on fire and pull open the back doors, ushering out the kids.
With stiff arms, Jet hands the pooper to Tammy. “I hope you brought a change of clothes for this one.”
Chagrined, she hands off her younger child to Gloria and frog-marches her oldest toward the Nature Center. Holding his hand against a disturbing bulge in the back of his pants, Milo whines, “It was a accident! Uncle Jet wouldn’t let us out of the car!”
Still reeling from the entire experience, I stand, shell-shocked next to the car. Gidget sidles up to me. “And that, ladies and
