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Matt is in the dining room, sitting with the children while they eat P&J sandwiches. I'm cleaning up the kitchen.
Gee: Yook, Daddy, we're eating peanut butter and jelly.
Matt: Is it good?
Gee: I like it. It's my favorite.
Ess: It's MY favorite.
Matt: It's everybody's favorite. Momma knew that. She sent me to the store last night to get the jelly.
Ess: You went to the store?
Gee: Because the jelly was all gone?
Matt: Right. And, she loves you so much, momma made sure to tell me to get the good jelly. Smucker's, she said. In the glass jar. None of that yucky Welsh's jelly in the plastic jar. It has a funny consistency.
Gee: Smucker's? Jelly?
Matt: That's what momma says.
Gee and Ess: .....
Matt: So, do you know what that is? Do you?
I pause in the kitchen, with narrowed eyes. I can here the glee in his voice. I smell trouble.
Gee: No, I don't know.
Ess: I don't know.
Matt: That's your Mother's Smuckers.
Ess and Gee: Mother Smuckers. Mother Smuckers? Mothers Smuckers!
Me: (Strangled noise of ire.)
Matt: (Uncontrollable laughter.)
I stand in the doorway of the dining room for a few minutes, glaring at him as the Mother Smucker chorus continues and he fails to control himself.
Me: I'm glad you find yourself so amusing.
Him: (He can't speak.)
Me: What exactly are we going to do when they say that at toddler school in two weeks? Because, you know they will.
Him: (Choking on mirth.) I don't know, I won't be there.
Me: Grrrrrrrr.
Him: Oh, you love me, think of the blog post you can write.
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On Saturday, we went to the Lentil Festival in a small town about an hour away. There was a parade. A lentil parade. Are you picturing it? Where do little towns come up with their festival themes? Is there a registry somewhere that doesn't allow repeats because lentils seem like a reach to me. The kids loved it. Horses. Firetrucks. Police cars. Police driving four wheelers. Lentil princesses. Candy. A bouncy castle. I did not make them eat lentils and instead they had pizza. They very nearly died of joy.
None of this is important. Here is the important moment of the day: I was right about a driving technique and Matt was wrong. Let me repeat that. I was RIGHT about a driving technique and Matt was WRONG. Ahhhh. I nearly died of joy.
We had to park almost at the top of an enormous hill because we were late, as usual, and all the good Lentil Festival parking was taken. So, he parks facing uphill and I tell him, because I distinctly remember this from Driver's Ed sophomore year of high school, "make sure to turn your front wheels towards the street."
Him: That's not what you do.
Me: Yes. Yes, it totally is. On an uphill, you turn your front wheels toward the street, so that when you roll backwards, they are angled into the curb and your minivan doesn't careen down a very large hill and kill Lentil Festival goers. When you are parked downhill, your turn them into the curb, so when it rolls, it hits the curb again.
Him: (Turning his wheels the wrong way, into the curb.) That's not right. If I turn the front wheels into the curb, then if the car rolls, the front wheels will roll out towards the street, but they will push the back wheels into the curb.
Me: You are wrong. I remember this from Driver's Ed. You are supposed to turn the front wheels into the street.
Him: How does that work?
Me: I don't know. I just memorized it.
Him: I'm not listening to you. You've driven completely through our garage door. You fail to understand why ferris wheel compartments don't turn upside down at the top of the ferris wheel.
Why don't ferris wheel compartments turn upside down at the top of the ferris wheel? It doesn't make any sense.
Me: Fine. Whatever. Cause a Lentil Festival tragedy. See if I care.
Him: How about if I just set the parking brake?
Me: This is for if that fails, Lentil Festival goer killer.
We walk down the hill passing car after car after car after car with their front wheels turned into the street, because I am RIGHT. Which makes my ham-eating, almost-always-right-husband, WRONG.
Him: Hmmmm. It looks like some of these hill parkers agree with you.
Me: ALL! ALL OF THE HILL PARKERS AGREE WITH ME BECAUSE I AM RIGHT!!
Him: I guess I better go back and fix the wheels.
Me: After you bow to me, goddess of hill parking.
Him: (Unpleasant snort in my direction.)
Me: (Shouting up the hill at his back.) I am so blogging about this. About how I was RIGHT on a car-related issue.
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Happy Lentil Festival goers, who were neither crushed by an out of control minivan nor choked by a hard candy death pellet. Thanks, entirely, to my diligence. You're welcome, grandmas!
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The Lentil parade was a typical small town parade complete with buses from the local retirement homes, Ronald McDonald and, a highlight for my toddlers, Clifford the Big Red Dog. Also, plenty of candy-pelting occurred because it's not a good home town parade unless you fling choking hazards at toddlers at the speed of candy bullets. I am a freak about hard candy. It's just sweetened toddler death pellets as far as I am concerned. I couldn't get it away from them fast enough. They would scramble to pick it up and I would scramble to beat them to it or pry it out of their sweaty little hands. Matt thought my candy policing was hilarious.
Matt: Could you snatch candy from babies any faster?
Me: These are really dangerous. They could choke. Kids die.
Matt: If I had a blog, I would blog about you scurrying around like a cockroach trying to get to the candy faster than our kids can.
Me: Silent death glare.
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Blogging has enhanced our marital bliss. It has become the ultimate argument ender. Once you've played the "I'd blog that" card, the discussion is over.
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