dirtyDogStink

Ignore Strangers

Wednesday, January 21 2009

During the end of December ‘08, the coffee-drinking, socks-n-sandals wearing inhabitants of the Pacific Northwest had a wee bit of snow.  It threw Seattle in to a tailspin [nice summary here], but in the end it meant snow in the mountains and better potential for the ski/snowboard season staring us in the face.  A season that virtually didn’t exist only a few weeks before.

As my friends and family know, I enjoy snowboarding. It’s a hobby I picked up from my little brother 8 or 9 years ago and I’ve been trying to keep up with him ever since. And now I feel like it’s time to introduce my daughter to the sport. She’s almost 5 years old and scoffs at the thought of monsters under her bed…fear isn’t a factor for her.

With great anticipation I scheduled her first two-planker [aka: ski] lesson for January 1st at Stevens Pass.  Knowing how the weather had been for the previous two weeks, that morning I checked the resort’s site for any closure notice and road conditions via the WSDOT to make certain things were a ‘go.’ It was snowing, but otherwise looked good. 

About 9:30 am we were loaded up and on the road.  She had some toys and a few movies on my Zune to keep her occupied, but honestly, she’s a great traveler rarely requiring much other than conversation and a nap to get through a 2-4 hour drive.

Around 10:30 we were well along U.S. Hwy 2, probably 25 miles from the resort and the snow was falling consistently.  An odd thing I noticed was that there were a lot of cars heading west, away from the resort. Also, many of these cars had skis and snowboards on roof racks which isn’t a good sign…they should have been heading west towards the snow. So I pulled over and called the Stevens Pass Snowline [425.353.4400].  Good news, it was still snowing and they were operating normally…so I kept driving.

Thirty minutes later found us within a few miles of the resort. My daughter was excited, but I was cautious. The number of cars heading west [the opposite direction] was steadily increasing as was the snowfall. I called the snowline again and received the bad news…the WSDOT had closed Hwy 2 across the Cascades so Stevens Pass Ski Resort would not be operating for the remainder of the day.  =(

Fortunately, my little girl is pretty resilient. She was disappointed, but still in good spirits as I turned around and began our hour and a half trek back home.  It wasn’t long, maybe 10 minutes, before she was fast asleep in her booster seat.

Feeling like I needed to compensate a bit for the disappointment of missing her ski lesson, I decided to do something I rarely do with her.  In her almost five years of life I’ve done this probably seven or nine times.  It’s not that I have a huge dislike for it, but it’s certainly a habit I don’t want to ingrain in her.

I decided to stop at The Golden Arches.

Even though I rarely take her, she’s quite familiar with the establishment and it’s various offerings from trips with other family members and daycare.  So when she woke up from her nap, she was quite excited to find me pulling into Mickey D’s.

After receiving our, um, nutritional, lunch and beverages we sat at a booth and proceeded to gorge ourselves on chicken nuggets [her] and cheeseburgers [me] and french fries [both].  It wasn’t long before we needed some more ketchup.

The condiment bar was on the other side of the restaurant, but in clear view without any obstacles and only 25 to 30 feet away.  She was busy eating so I decided to just make a run for it and keep an eye on her instead of dragging her along with me.

“Honey, I’m going to get us some more ketchup from over there [pointing]. I want you to sit right here and stay put. Don’t get up and walk anywhere. I also don’t want you talking to any strangers. Ok?”

“Ok Daddy.”

“Now what are you supposed to do while I’m getting us some more ketchup?”

“Stay here and don’t talk to any strangers.”

“Bingo! I’ll be right back.”

I walked through a small crowd of eight or ten people standing in line at the counter, all the while keeping an eye on my little girl.  She was also watching me.  Things were going as planned.

Just as I reached the condiment bar and was about to fill some of those little white cups from the ketchup dispenser, my oh-so honest little girl yelled proudly, in a voice loud enough to carry across the restaurant and through it’s din of chatter, “Daddy! I’m not talking to any strangers!”

I replied “that’s great peanut” just before letting out a big laugh.  Engrossed with the decision of meal deal # 2 or 5, scarfing down a large order of fries or refilling their sodas, no one else really noticed.  But I thought it was hilarious.

So there you have it, a five year old girl’s exuberant [and informative] implementation of her dad’s request to ignore strangers.  Parenting certainly has it’s funny moments, which make all the tough ones worth it.

~tod