By Now, The Tail Of That Bird Has Been Yanked, And The Closing Time Whistle Has Sounded

Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to work he goes...Put on your Ward Cleaver suit, pack up a tin lunch pail, get ready to punch the time clock.

The #1 son started his summer job today. He's working at an engineering firm in the city, and has rented a room from the son of the fitness coordinator of a college who was consulted by a woman working in the administrative offices who is the cousin of one of our Newmentia faculty. Follow that rabbit trail, if you dare.

Our young adult has already emailed me about needing more info to fill out his W-4 form. Don't we all? I'm hoping he is doing well on the work itself. It's the little extraneous things that trip him up. Uh huh. He's an absentminded professor.

He was at the Mansion from Friday night until Sunday morning. In that time, he managed to lose his hoodie (twice) and forget to put on antiperspirant. He remembered not to be stinky as he drove up the driveway on his way to a renaissance fair in the city. I saw his little red Ranger stop in the driveway and back up to the Mansion. Assured to be nonfragrant, he was off again to meet up with a friend whose idea it was to attend this fair. "I'm really not all that interested to spend $18 on admission. I get enough of these kind of people and their LARPing while I'm at college."

Still, the #1 son is a good friend. He called me when they arrived. "Hey. We're here in the parking lot, and we're afraid to go in. The first three people we saw are men in capes. We might be the only ones not in costume." In the background, I could hear the friend saying, "This is the best day of my life!" Apparently, the people at HIS college don't go around like this all the time. When they saw a guy in a regular red T-shirt, they figured it was safe to go in. According to #1, there was plenty of ale, but no tankards (thus disappointing him) and no mead. I advised them to share a giant turkey leg, while The Pony swore there would be mutton. #1 reported, upon return, that he only consumed a funnel cake (who knew they were so popular during that period of history?) and that he had seen many a turkey leg, but no mutton. He also called me during the event. "Hey, in four minutes there's going to be jousting!" The Pony was a bit perturbed that I did not tell him to take a video. But as The Pony has a surplus of karma, #1 did indeed take a video, and even showed it to him later that night.

The hoodie was left in theater 2 of a four-plex after a 10:45 p.m. showing of Neighbors. The #1 son was seeing it for the second time, since the ex-girlfriend of a college friend did not want to see The Amazing Spider-Man 2. Like I said, the #1 son is a good friend. I was afraid a worker might have scammed that Portal hoodie for himself. I described it to the teenage ticket-taker at 10:00 the next morning. He spoke into his headset and described it to the just-past-teenage manager, who came carrying it out of a closed room. I went back to T-Hoe shaking that thing over my head like a WWF championship wrestling belt for the benefit of my mom and The Pony, who were on a quest to make sure The Pony is properly shod for his upcoming 3-week adventure at Missouri Scholars Academy.

We told #1 twice that his precious hoodie was in T-Hoe. Yet after he had packed up and headed off into the world to start his working life, we found Hoodie still laying across the passenger seat of T-Hoe as we left to attend The Pony's last band concert.

It's hard out there for a genius. But he has THIS to look forward to every day.