Over the weekend, we met up with Ben's sister who was visiting from out-of-town, at a nearby Starbucks. We could have chosen a kid friendly place like McDonald’s, or a Chuck E. Cheese, but instead opted for Starbucks. [Side note here: since Chuck E. Cheese lost it’s liquor license, I’ve realized it smells a lot like farts when you’re sober.] So, we didn’t go to a "kids' place," but we also didn’t go to a bar - where I'd like to see more of our family gatherings held. Really? You don’t know what I mean?
Anyway, it was mid-afternoon, and after a morning of birthday party drop-offs, and pick-ups, and all the quaaludes, we really needed something with a little pick-me-up. And coffee just seemed like a simpler delivery method than sticking a wet finger into an electrical outlet.
As it turns out, there were lots of fun activities to keep the girls occupied, while Ben and I relaxed in overstuffed armchairs. We sipped on our coffees and pretended the children belonged to someone else. Whenever they’d start using their "outside voices" we'd exchange looks and then roll our eyes like…Who brings kids to a coffee house?! Isn’t there some icy street they could be playing in?
Here’s one of the fun things, for kids, to do at Starbucks. The other is groping all the coffee stir sticks with their hands.
[click above image for larger view]
Whitney asked us what the black stuff on her hands was. I was about to explain how…Newspapers are printed with ink and sometimes when there's a lot of humidity in the air, or when our fingers are moist from sticking them into our nostrils, the ink from the paper…but Ben interrupted before I could finish, "The black stuff is the tears of the print media industry. It’s dying, and chances are there won’t be printed newspapers when you’re old enough to read them."
[click above image for larger view]
And I see the man's point. Explaining the how's, why's and when's of printed newspapers is like teaching the girls how to use the library card catalog. Or insisting our three year old memorizes the satellite dish's corresponding channel numbers.
Why exert perfectly good energy informing them on methods and procedures which are, or will be, obsolete by the time they’ll need them? When what they really need to learn is that dumping liquid dairy products onto the floor mats will cause the truck to smell like rotting squirrel.
Once they'd lost interest in the newspaper [and statistically haven't we all?] we sent them to play with the land-line phone behind the counter, because the quaint sound of the dial tone makes them giggly!
