A Weekend I'd Just As Soon Forget

How bad was this weekend? It took me more than three days to write about it; that's how bad.

Let's just say that if this were a typical, Monday morning conversation between two friends in New York, it would start with the wave if a hand followed by the statement, "Bah, you don't want to know." Then that person would proceed to recount the events in chronological then non-linear order.

Really it was that bad.

Okay, so here's the wave...

And here's the "bah".

And now for the agita.

The chronological summary goes something like this. Friday: 13 and his friend leave their school bags in the Lindenhurst Youth Center which closed early for the whole weekend. Saturday: 13 has a meltdown over a prank gone wrong while playing baseball with his friends; 13 lost his palette expander; The last post I wrote at Jonestown stirred a bruising flame war in comments. Sunday: I smashed my Jeep into the Lindenhurst Youth Center van.

And to think, the weekend has started quite well for me. I was in the City on Friday night jamming with JaNamo and Joe. My cousin Louie and his girlfriend were in town from Minneapolis for an education conference/seminar. When I got the call from E. that Sean had left his bag, I was pretty calm and told him that we would get the bags back on Sunday. (queue the ominous forshadowing music.)

It just got worse. The next day a battle royale broke out on ball fields of Lindenhurst. Our dear 13 got into a scrum with one of his best friends, Matt, after a prank went awry. 13's test of the hypothesis that friends won't get mad if you toss their mitt onto the backstop went horribly wrong. One thrown bottle of Gatorade later, followed on by a few thrown punches, and a blind-side tackle, found me pleading with 13's pubescent sensibilities to let his anger go; that the friendships he's building now will probably be the most important in his life. He's known the kids he runs with since kindergarten. "Why ruin a good thing?" I asked.

He bit. Reason prevailed. Apologies were delivered. Hands were shaken. All that was left to do was to find a quill pen and a parchment for the peace treaty signatures. When it was over, I smiled at Matt's mom in that he's-really-not-my-son sort of way. But not long after he was back in the good graces of his peeps , he fell back onto my shit list by losing his palette expander. I'm not sure why their needed for braces, but at $275 a pop to replace them, you can be damn sure they're important. So, important that I cajoled the manager at the McDonald's on Sunrise Highway and N. Monroe Avenue to let me sift through his garbage. Seven bags and lots of fast-food gunk later, I gave up.

But that's not all. Some of you had ring side seats for a bonafide flame war between one of my best blogger friends Kelso and the Progressive Traditionalist over a post I wrote over at Jonestown. Thankfully, another blogger friend of mine, David B. Dancy mediated the conflict.

Again, reason prevailed. Apologies were delivered. Hands were shaken. A tacit agreement to disagree was reached. Peace reigned in Jonestown until the next provocateur posted anew.

I was happy again. So happy in fact that as I was tooling down E. Gates Avenue on my way to the village library, I decided to stop over at the Youth Center to see if anyone was home. I parked my ride in front of the town's van and jumped out to bang on the door. Someone was there! Awesome. I picked up the bags, threw them in the truck and called Sean to tell him the good news. Right after I hung up, I started the truck, put it in reverse and backed up without looking, forgetting that the van was behind me...



POW!!!!



I probably could have drove away from it since the only significant damage to my car was a busted tail light assembly, which I replaced myself. But had it not been for 13, I'd of never had gotten into the accident. It was my second fender bender in two months. Can you just smell the rate increase coming? But I did the right thing. I told the guy in the Youth Center about the accident, who contacted his boss, who called me to settle the matter the next day. I could have walked away virtually scot-free were it not for my own conscience.

13's response was classic. When I told him that technically he's responsible for the damage, he did his best Cheney impersonation, "So?"

Okay, someone tell me. Is this not the face only a mother could love? Because after this weekend, his mother was the only one that did.