mrs-roboto's Diaryland Diary
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The Finale
If you see him, RUN!
Here's the last of my sad tale and you'll excuse me if it seems rushed. I'm rather ready to close this chapter and move forward. As a matter of fact, I have so much else going on that I am apt to not write about the rest of the visit but that's just not fair to anyone who was following along with me.
So, it's Saturday morning now. We wake to the wails of Damian once again. Pete works as my own personal barista and prepares my cup of morning pep. The in-laws congregate in the kitchen, where they feed Vienna sausages to Damian. I shake my head. Organic and healthy, my ass. I grab my coffee and head directly out the door to the neighbors where I sit in the peace and silence for a half hour or so. I had said not a word to anyone. No "good morning" or "how did you sleep?" I simply left, a look of utter disgust on my face. I return to the house in silence and dress and say good-bye to Pete. I hop in the car and head off realizing that staying at a distance from Damian and crew will be the only way to save my sanity. I leave Pete to deal with the madness, a vague plan of meeting up sometime in the evening in effect.
I wander the city with the two dogs in tow. My eyes bleary from a lack of sleep, my shoulders hunched. I took the pups along because I feared for their welfare. That child had been eyeing them with a stare of pure evil. I imagine this is how serial killers look when they are toddlers. I hang out in the public park for hours and hours. The plans of escaping with Itzie for a day having fallen through due to a misalignment of the stars. I sit in the car and read the paper. I window shop. I have another coffee, then a beer at a bar, then a glass of wine. I kill time.
Sometime in the late afternoon, I wander home. To my dismay, the in-laws are still there. I see the rental car in front of the house and I'm tempted to keep on going but I steady myself and head in. I acknowledge no one besides Pete. I look around and there are things everywhere, I can see that Damian has been having fits and throwing food ever since I left. My home is in shambles. Pete looks as if someone has trampled all over him. Marge is taking a nap (surprise, surprise). Stew is playing the Cartoon Network on the highest possible volume. Damian is running back and forth, screaming and yelling. It's chaos, complete and utter chaos.
My first reaction is to head straight for the liquor and so I do. I pour myself a strong drink. I consume it quickly and fix a second. Pete enters the room.
"They want to take us to dinner," he tells me. "Well, actually my parents want them to take us to dinner so they sent them money and told them to do that."
"What," I ask. This doesn't make any sense.
"Stew told me that my parents told him he had to take us out to dinner and when he said he had no money to do so, my parents sent him cash for this express purpose. So Stew wanted to know what your favorite restaurant is."
At this we both explode in laughter. Both of us know that there is no way we would bring that motley crew anywhere we'd like to go again. The child doesn't behave in our home, I have no doubt what a monster he will be at a nice restaurant. I tell Pete to choose someplace I will never miss going, someplace we can strike from our repertoire without a care. He picked a seafood place with outdoor seating based on the fact that the inlaws had just been raving about the Clam Box, a dumpy fish and chips place back East. This is high end living to them. Anyway, there are many children who are roughly the same age as Damian at our selection so I figure we'll be okay. We won't stand out too much, right? Wrong.
Within a few minutes of our arrival Damian begins his wailing. He throws the sippy cup across the room. He hits Stew because he wants cola not milk. He throws a fork at the waitress. He thrown everything within reach on the floor. Marge says something about taking things away from him but there is no follow through. In fact, she hands him something else to throw on the floor. When Pete questions her reasoning, she says it "buys her time." If he's throwing something, he's not crying. I actually place my head down on the table and cover it with my arms. I order a Bloody Mary, extra spicy and extra strong. The dam is about to burst folks.
Directly across from us sits a family with a boy who also appears to be about two. The young child rolls a small toy car back and forth on the table top of his high chair. He is smiling and quiet and doesn't hurl objects. Damian spots him and begins to screech. "Mine, mine, mine!" He points at the car and yells. "Gimme, gimme, gimme!" He picks up his sippy cup and hurls it at this poor little boy. The little boy extends his hand as if to share his toy car. I explode.
"I just don't get it," I say shaking my head. "Tell me Damian, why oh why are you always so damn unhappy and unpleasant? Why?"
Stew begins his "He's a two year old boy" diatribe but I interrupt. "Stew, how old do you think that little boy over there is? Or that one over there? Or that one?" I point to the billions of toddlers seated about the restaurant. "They're all roughly two," I say before he can answer. "Do you see any of them behaving in such a miserable manner?" Stew does not answer me. "No, they do not. They do not throw things or hit their parents or cry constantly. You're child is not the average two year old boy. Don't tell me any different."
Silence. Absolute and utter silence for thirty unbroken seconds. And then Damian began his wailing again. I can't recall speaking throughout the remainder of dinner. I don't think we made anymore conversation. The bus boy came by periodically and sneered at us. Damian had thrown his spaghetti everywhere, spilled soda, knocked over a glass of water, and generally made a huge mess in between temper tantrums. The bus boy could not help but show his extreme hatred for us.
As the meal closed, Pete asserted himself. "What time are you leaving tomorrow? Perhaps you should pack tonight and get an early start."
There's some talk of going to the park first to let little Damian run free before the ride back to Portland. Pete explains he'd be happy to point them in the right direction of the park in the morning as long as the car was packed and they hit the road straight from there, and Sunday morning there was more crying and screaming and what I assume is all typical of a day in their lives. We practically pushed them out the door and you bet we locked it. No reentry here.
So that's the whole story. We haven't heard anything from them since their departure nor have we heard from Pete's parents. We may be being blackballed for a bit but I don't think we much care. We're just enjoying the tranquility. By the way, anyone have any tips for getting dried egg yolk off white walls?
1:57 p.m. - 2003-07-14
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