The girls are on spring break this week.  We really like where we live.  It’s why we live here.  So, instead of bringing the girls somewhere else to see something interesting in someone else’s city, we decided to show them that there are cool things to do indoors and outdoors, all year round in our hometown.  We also stayed home because we lack the ambition to haul them somewhere for a proper vacation 

It was too cold and gray on the first few days of spring break for us to want to go out.  It stayed cold and gray but eventually, we needed to get out.  So, we drove the girls to an art museum.  When we got there, my wife took Audio in one direction and Dee Dee and I went in a different direction and agreed to all meet up after about an hour.  The last time we visited this museum, it was clear that the girls’ interests and interest levels varied greatly.  We hoped that splitting up would make for a better experience, and it did. 

Dee Dee found a lot of paintings that she liked.  She expressed her interest by running up to paintings, getting really close to them, and pointing at them.  I did my best to explain to her that she was the only person who knew that she wasn’t going to touch the art.  And that if she kept it up, the blue coats would toss us out.  She kept saying that she understood, but it got to where I had to hold her hand tightly to keep her from sprinting across the galleries, arm outstretched, finger expended, shouting about a new favorite piece she’d discovered.  It beat the alternative of her being bored and disinterested, and we managed to avoid being ejected. 

When I handed Dee Dee off to her mother, Audio and I went on a hunt for a “queen’s throne in a room” that Audio had seen when we visited the museum last summer.  We wandered around the building for a bit and then asked a blue coat of she could think of something that a four-year-old might describe as a “queen’s throne in a room.”  The blue coat suggested that we try going down a staircase, go straight, turn right, and look there, and if we didn’t see it, ask other blue coats to direct us to “the chair” on that floor.  We went in the direction she suggested and found a small, wooden chair sitting unremarkably, in the dark, in front of a large piece of marble.  Audio confirmed my suspicion that this was not the “queen’s throne in a room” that she’d been thinking of. 

Audio and I then went back to look at the paintings I saw with Dee Dee.  Audio wasn’t exactly interested in many of the pieces, but she didn’t show any signs of being bored or wanting to leave.   So, we wandered from room to room, holding hands and avoiding the blue coats until it was about time to meet up with Dee Dee and my wife.  We noticed one, lone, calm looking blue coat and figured we’d give looking for the “queen’s throne in a room” one more try.  He pointed out an elaborate entryway that we could see, just down a staircase from where we were standing.  He directed us to go down the stairs and through the entryway to see if that was what Audio was looking for.  We walked down the stairs and through the entryway, only to find ourselves looking at the same wooden chair in front of a hunk of marble that we’d previously seen. 

We met with Dee Dee and my wife and started making our way to the exit, zipping up coats and making sure that we had everything that we had when we arrived.  My wife told me that she had also asked a blue coat if they could think of a “queen’s throne in a room” and was shown the same wooden chair sitting in the dark, in front of a hunk of marble.  We agreed that searching for Audio’s “queen’s throne in a room” warranted a future trip to the museum and then found our way out of the building and to our car.  Once in the car, I remembered that I forgot to bring the cooler with us.  When we go to restaurants and pick up food to go, we usually bring a soft sided cooler with us to keep the food warm while we drive home.  There are a few places near the museum that we wanted to try.  So, without our cooler, we drove to the closest restaurant that had off-street parking. 

We went to a Vietnamese place and ordered soup, egg rolls, and a sandwich for all four of us to split for dinner back at home.  The food was brought out before we had a chance to get settled in and my wife paid for it with her credit card.  It was in plastic and styrofoam containers that were wrapped in plastic bags, all held together in one large plastic bag.  My wife sat in the passenger seat with the bag of bags and containers on her lap.  She opened the bag enough to poke around inside and make sure that we got the right order.  And, even though she didn’t open any of the containers, she soon noticed that hot soup had leaked out of the container and had found a hole in the plastic bag around the container as well as the large plastic bag on her lap.  Her legs were getting wet and scalded from the soup.  So, I carried the whole order back inside and showed the woman at the counter what had happened.   

I expected the woman to apologize, or at least be somewhat empathetic.  Instead, she said, “The soup wasn’t leaking when I gave you the bag” and then picked up a pen and started to write something on a scrap of paper.  I thought about telling the lady about how I’d forgotten the cooler that we usually use to carry food, but figured she didn’t care.  So, I told the lady that I wasn’t accusing her of giving us a leaky bag, I was just showing her what happened, and I asked if I could have another bag to wrap everything in until we get home.  She said I could have another bag, but that the city forced her to charge five cents for every plastic bag.  I just wanted to get out of there, so I agreed to the conditions.   

The woman pulled out a large, plastic bag that would accommodate the entire order and then rang up 5¢ on the cash register.  As she passed the bag to me, I pulled out my wallet and immediately remembered that all the cash that had been in my wallet had been stuffed into the donation box at the museum.  I’d given about half the content of my wallet to Dee Dee to push through the slot in the box.  When Audio got upset that Dee Dee got to give the donation, I gave her the other half of my money to push through the slot.  It made her happy at the time, but now I had no cash and no change in my pockets.  So, I pulled out my credit card.   

As I handed the card to the woman, she pointed at a sign that read, “$10 minimum purchase for credit cards” without saying anything.  I told the woman that I’d need to run out to the car to get her nickel.  Then, I wrapped the brothy, wet bag of our dinner into the big, clean bag and went out to the car where I handed it off to my wife.  I started the engine and we quickly drove out of the parking lot.  I didn’t bother explaining anything to my wife or the girls.  They were busy singing a song about an itchy inchworm.  I aimed the car towards the nearest freeway entrance and merged my way into the river of cars that were heading towards our house.