Tomorrow is fort-building day, except that I'm pretty sure my kids all ditched me in favor of hanging out with their friends. I thought this would be a good bonding thing or whatever. But whatever.
I kind of need their help, because when I sit out there with a hammer and box of nails and build something that looks like a first grader did it, I should at least be able to tell people that a first grader actually did build it.
This is another instance where it's proven that I should have kept the tools and let the couch go, because we never sit in the living room, and I am pretty sure that my ex hasn't...uh...used them. It's so hard to be diplomatic sometimes. Anyway, I should have kept the tools. Because I live somewhere and living somewhere means fixing things and building forts and basically a lot of things involving more than a hammer and a teeny tiny screwdriver for changing batteries in Thomas the Train.
Also, today we discovered that Lowe's is not somewhere you go as a family. It's more like a one person at a time kind of place, because everyone has their favorite part of the store and it's never the same part for any two people. I needed nails, that was it. Easy to find, right at the front of the store. Then, we decided to find a tarp. Those aren't easy to find. We went past the hardware for cabinetry, which enthralled Madilynn. Then, Emma fell in love with the giant toolboxes for pickup beds. Donovan liked the appliances because he quite dangerously fit into most of them. Huston liked the plants. Dalton was entranced by the variety of doors. And Warrick just had to go to the bathroom (note: the bathroom in a home improvement store is always a mile away from what you're there for...it's faster to just go home).
It turns out that the single common denominator for all the kids was handsaws. We were heading to check out and walked past a display of handsaws. Within two seconds, each child was armed and dangerous, playing Luke Skywalker: The Construction Worker. I kept walking and pretended I didn't know them, but it turns out that people had already seen them with me, so I had to "do something about it".
When the saws were all put back in their original spots, more or less, we proceeded to have no less than two hundred arguments about why we couldn't buy all the flashlights near the register while the guy in front of me argued with the cashier about pricing. He wouldn't quit even after I rolled my eyes at the back of his head at least a dozen times.
After we finally got through the register and were all heading toward the door, the cashier (who I learned, during our wait, is currently in her EIGHTH YEAR of college) calls my kids back and asks them if they want a penny. Not if each of them wanted a penny. But if they all six wanted one penny. Again, I was already at the door, mission complete, you know? But no, because they all go running back to fight over the damn penny. So she held it over their heads and said "as long as you don't fight over it." Nice. Luckily, three of them have no interest in pennies, as they have learned that the only coin worth fighting over is one you can stick in a vending machine. The other kids, not so much.
Finally, one of them grabbed the penny and bolted for the door with the rest chasing after. I threw a handful of pennies into the truck and waited till the last kid jumped after them and slammed the doors. Somewhere in all that fuss, we lost the nails. So perhaps our fort will just be boards leaning against trees like the kind I used to spend hours making as a kid. Perhaps it is for the best. Perhaps not, but I now know the nails aren't worth it.
