Once Upon a Time, My son hit me in the Junk

Garage sales, the national past time of suburban America.  You want someone else's junk?  Then go to garage sales.  Every man's junk is another man's treasure and for a single income household with children, there's no better place to get tons of cheap clothes that they can effectively destroy all summer without you going into a seizures.  It's the difference between letting the kids play in the mud while camping or wrapping them in a giant bubble so that their clothes stay clean.  You realize that your child will be made fun of, he will be picked on, kids will throw rocks at his bubble.  Girls will shun him and soon he will name his left foot "Wilson" and they will grow very close.  You are ok with this because that shirt that cost 15 bucks remained clean and untorn.  Or you can go to garage sales and live with the fact that that shirt cost 50 cents and if it gets ripped up in the Octogon of Life, you are ok with it.  He will get dates, women will adore your son, men will want to be your son and when he is the first man to walk on Mars, he will write your name in the barren red sands as his inspiration.

Your choice.  Name on Mars or a son that is still living with you when he's 40.  Go to garage sales as a parent.

There's always a sense of excitment when you go to garage sales becuase you really don't know what you might find.  I'm not talking junk, although I do prefer to keep a nice supply of scrap metal and hat pins from Alaska around the garage.  You never know when you might need those things.  I am a firm believer that when the world fail,s hat pins will become the new currency.  As a father of two very ambitious children that love to break shit, I find garage sales the perfect way to replace the valuables that I have lost.

My desk chair broke - although broke does not do justice to the pile of carnage that it became.  For a while there, the kids very much enjoyed things that spun around.  They also enjoyed hammers.  I'll let you guess what happened to the chair.

I was recently able to replace that chair with a brand new used garage sale chair, it comes complete with pre-formed butt grooves.  It takes a man many years to make those butt groves that makes office chairs oh so special.  5 bucks is what it cost me and if it breaks because two beautiful young children decide to take the old power drill for test, I won't be to upset.  At this point you are probably asking me why my children are playing with power tools without proper supervision.  I think I have made this clear in this blog over the years, I am a terrible parent.  I shouldn't have kids, I should have plants.  But my plants would probably mutate and grab the nail gun.

We are about to go into T-ball this year.  I am very excited, I grew up playing baseball and there is a part of me that can imagine both of my children on Mars playing a nice pick up game vs the stinking Russians that we had to bring along on their voyage.  They will destroy them of course and that is when my name will be written into the Martian sand.  But baseball gear is expensive.  Balls, gloves, bats, chewing tobacco, all these things cost a lot of money for children that may not use it after one year.

When I saw the box of baseballs for a buck, I was all over it.  She said that I could take as many as I wanted for a dollar.  I stopped at about 20 because I was starting to feel bad.  I figured 20 was a good amount as well because I'm guessing that once the kids throw them through neighbors windows, we aren't going to want to retrieve them.  I was also able to find 2 T-ball baseball bats.  They are both in great shape and seem to be a very nice weight for both my children to crack skulls with when they are giving their Al Capone type motivational speech.

However, one thing that I haven't been able to find yet at a garage sale is a cup.  I'm talking about a junk protector, not a sippy cup.  This may sound gross and it probably is but still, it's needed.  No for t-ball of course, but for the garage sale-ing activity itself.

I was talking to one of the dads that went with me, Papa Scrum who is the garage sale guru.  We were having a nice chat about the importance of dirt in farming.  A very special topic that is near and dear to his heart.  He maintains that you must have dirt to farm.  I maintain that I farm at the grocery store with a debit card.  However, I will admit that his new wave dirt farming techniques provide a plethora of great fresh vegetables every summer. He is no longer growing corn though because of the raccoons seem to like to jump his fence and eat all of it.  I have offered to let Knuckles and Lefty spend the night in the garden with their brand new baseball bats.  He is considering it.

As the conversation was continuing my son walked up with a brand new trucker hat that some lovely older lady gave him.  He saw I was distracted and realized that this is a weakness.  Being my son, he pounced on the opportunity.

He swiftly and quite correctly punched me in the balls.

I went double over after a whoosh of air went out of my lungs.  I started laughing as well because let's be honest, if it was anyone but me, this would be funny as hell.  A 4 year old bringing a grown man to his knees, there is part of me that is proud of this.  Papa Scrum sat their for a minute, not quite sure what happened.

"Did he just punch you in the nuts?"

"Yup."

Perhaps I will find a junk protector at the next garage sale.  Although perhaps we will steer clear of the houses that have tools for sale, just in case.