Wednesday, May 31, 2006

Playdate Day!

You hate scheduling playdates for your baby daughter with other kids because the other moms are always into some pretty weird shit and you can't help but get wrapped up in it with them. The last time you ended up harboring the kid's mother for like ten hours while the police surrounded the place talking into a bullhorn about a warrant for bad checks. The time before that you ended up with a mom who had something to do with the whole Iran Nuke thing that everyone's talking about, and the playdate got cut short when people in suits came and drove her and her baby away in an armored SUV.

Today's Mom is going to seem nice at first, but it won't be long before she starts trying to get you to help her dig into the ground behind her house while the children play in the yard. There's something very valuable not six feet below the grass, she'll tell you. And if you help her find it, you'll get half.

You'll be intrigued, and since it's your nature to be accommodating, you'll dig with the mom until you get six feet under ground and hit your shovel against something solid.

"That'll be him," she'll say. You'll climb back up on the grass and watch the mom hack away at the lid of a coffin with an ax. Soon you'll see the gray rotted bones of the skeleton inside. But you'll forget all about those bones when the glint of gold strikes your eye. You'll peek behind the garage to make sure the kids are playing nice, then you'll watch the Mom climb back up with a giant gold medallion dangling on a chain from her clenched fist.

"Kiss it," the Mom will say. You'll kiss the medallion, and then she'll kiss it in kind. She'll tell you that tomorrow you and she will go and have the booty appraised.

"Booty?" you'll ask.

"Pirate's treasure," she'll say. "But not to worry, unless you believe in curses,"

She'll laugh and you'll laugh with her because another thing you hate about playdates is you always want to seem cool to the other moms.

Tonight, when a ghost ship docks in your bedroom and a ghost skeleton of a pirate tells you that the mom ran off with the medallion and they're taking your daughter on the boat until you return their medallion to them, you'll realize more than ever before just how much you hate fucking playdates.

Happy Playdate Day!