The Wheels On The Bus...

Time is passing, things are changing. After work I played with my girlfriend's sister's daughter in the park. Does that make sense? If my girlfriend and I were married, which we will be when I'm 87, Rosie would be my neice. She'll start to hate me later on, but she thinks I'm pretty cool now. We point out animals in my books. I pay attention to her. She's the only girl I hug and kiss besides my girlfriend, and I don't have to figure out bills with her, so it's a perfect arrangement. After I got off of work today, my girlfriend asked if I would take Rosie to the " P.A.R.K?". I agreed so that my girlfriend and her sister could talk about family/girl stuff in peace. We went to the park by my house. I had to carry her in my arms all the way there. That was the agreement. If I had it my way, I probably would've let Rosie drive me there. Not my kid. Not my rules. If I had it my way, I'd instruct Rosie to act like she was a midget and ask adult questions to the adults. I'd give her a cel phone and dress her up in a jogging suit. I'd tell her to scream into the phone and ask people, "What the fuck you lookin' at?" when they were staring. I'd tell her to say, " Haven't you ever seen a midget with sloooow speech before?"

The park was empty when we got there. We climbed on everything. We slid down the slides. I made the mistake of teaching her how to play, "Store" in one of the play houses. I would give her wood chips as money and she would give me hamburgers. Consumerism, anyone? I'm glad I didn't call the play house, "McDonalds". Then I would've had to pretend to puke all over the place. Rosie never grew tired of the game, I was sick of putting my hands in all of the woodchips. I kept on thinking about what drunk teenagers do at parks late at night. I tried to tell her that we should go on the slides again. See? Kids aren't bored doing the same thing over and over again. I am. That makes me the kid, I think. Then I thought that if I told her that I was going to play on the slide instead of asking her, I'd get my way. It worked.

The playground started to get filled with small little kids. About eight little things and four mothers that I knew for a fact were younger than me. I live close to a home for troubled, young, pregnant mothers. That explains the kids. One little dude with dreadlocks started to follow me around and wanted to do all of the things that I was doing. Nobody seemed to be watching him. He'd just squeek at me, but I was afraid of lifting him up on things and getting funny looks from the mamas. I had my kid, though. That was my defense. Little dreadlock boy started to follow us everywhere and so I helped lift him on a platform and tried to not make Rosie jealous and make it seem that it was perfectly natural that I was devoting half my time to her and a complete stranger. Little dreadlock boy started to eat the woodchips after sticking his mouth down into the ground. I was afraid of him choking, so I looked around and saw nobody paying attention once again. So, I did the only thing that I could. I stuck my fingers in somebody's baby's mouth and started to pull out the wood chip slivers. I was waiting for the scream from a mother. " What the hell are you doing with my baby?". I was picking fucking wood out of saliva, okay? I shouldv'e thrown some chips in his diapers for fun. That would've really tripped them out later.

Babies were everywhere. When I was helping Rosie climb up a rope ladder. A little thing about the size from my foot to my knee came running up to me as I was climbing. She had a big smile on her face. I had an abject look of terror on mine. I blocked her to stop her from falling about four feet to the ground. I saw some of the mother's start to pay more attention then.

I felt like a father, a little bit. I was standing around watching Rosie with eagle eyes. One of the teenage girls/sitters was shadowing one of the munchkins around. I had a smile on my face and my eyes were darting around, looking for any potential obstacle or danger. Isn't it funny that parents in parks never really look at each other? They can't. One glance away means a busted kid head. I don't know who said what, it was something about one of the slides. I said some thing like, " Yeah, she really likes those." The mom said, "Oh yeah, mine too!" Ummmm....I'm standin' here in my bluejeans, scary black skull t-shirt, wristbands, and scary hair. I don't really fit, okay?

But I guess I do. Because I could be a father now. And I've always dressed however I wanted to at the moment. My uniform is pretty basic. Black shirts when warm. Collared long sleeves when cold. Hair always dumb. Me father now? No. You taking care of mine when I have em'? Oh yeah.

I'll teach my kid how to spellcheck too.


Poop head.