Common Sense

I spent a few hours last night at Space Monkey’s house with his family at a barbecue. His parents are going on a cruise and everyone was celebrating with much wine drinking and cheese eating. We are, after all, sophisticated country folk.

And everyone was talking about last Saturday. How can it be a “night that must never be spoken of” if everyone already knows about it?

We didn’t drink. We watched the kids. I watched a few card games with the kids (no one would let us teach them Texas Hold ‘Em, which I consider a valuable life skill) and we spent a lot of time running around outside. Those kids were some cheaters! They cheat at cards and they cheat at Hide and Seek! Space Monkey cheats too, so I guess it evens out.

Team Alpha Strikeforce, later renamed Texas Fireball by committee decision, won more than they lost, I’m happy to say.

I spent 30 minutes following around little Payton trying to get SM’s deck of cards back. She really wanted to play dealer and was just carrying them all around the house. She was interesting, to say the least. She couldn’t form a coherent word, but if you said “Payton, sing,” she would bust out into song. And when someone caught a grass snake in the front yard and showed it to her, she instantly reached for it. That proves my theory that fear of snakes is a learned behavior in our culture, not an instinct.

The fun was over for me by 10. I was, after all, being paid to dogsit and I had barely seen the Jesus all day. Space Monkey tried to pawn another dog off on me. Their kennel was trying to get rid of the last two puppies they had from their last litter and he was practically giving it away to me. He knows, he knows, that I’ve always wanted a chocolate lab to name Dakota and cover in kisses. Alas, I don’t think the Common Sense household wants another dog. I’m shattered.