Sunday, October 3, 2010

Dadding for fun and profit.

Fall campout last night for the scouts of Rye, at the reservation in Putnam County. Not too wet, despite torrential rain over the last two days. Overnight temperature a surprising low-40s, but Secundus and I are snug in our sleeping bags and two-person tent. (He should be. I woke in the middle of the night to find him lying sideways, using my stomach as a pillow.) He's very happy, having caught the biggest fish of the afternoon.

But who drives a Porsche to a campout?*

Back home, later in the day, Secundus volunteers to work the self-service scanner at the Stop & Shop checkout, while Tertius insists he needs no help with the bagging. I step back and relax, luxuriating in a rare bit of successful dadding.

The checkout computer voices the price as items are scanned, and for produce without a bar code, names the food, so you can be sure you pushed the right button. It does so using that vocal ransom-note technique that pieces the sentence out of separately recorded snippets: "Place your . . . [apples] . . . on the belt.

Excuse the vulgar duplication of end-stops, but I swear that I heard this intonation when the moment came: "Place your . . . broccoli??!!  . . . on the belt."

*Not me, I had the minivan. Another dad. This is Rye.

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