January 24, 2015

“And that’s where you were both born,” my wife said fondly as she pointed out the car window into the dark night and the large, illuminated sign for the large hospital we were passing on our right.

I caught the eye of our eldest in the rear view mirror and chimed in, “You didn’t want to come out. We had to wait an extra week to see you.”

Our eldest shifted his position in the back seat, embarrassed by the entire conversation.

There’s a general feeling of happiness in the air over this trip down nostalgia lane, which our youngest then interrupted with, “Not me, I couldn’t wait to get out of that wretched place.”

Silence filled the void created when happiness was uncerimoniously ousted from the area. It’s not lost on me that he pronounced “wretched” as “ratched” due to an accent he was cultivating that has nothing to do with where we live or anyone we know.

I caught the eye of our youngest via the rear view mirror.


“What was that?” I asked.

He immediately seized the opportunity to expand upon his point.

“You know, it’s all dark and there’s no room to move.” His volume elevated as he shifted around in his car seat to further illustrate his point. “I had to get out of there.”

I shook my head and looked over at my wife. Nostalgia had just met our youngest son, and nostalgia had lost that encounter in a big, big way. She shook her head as well and we continued our drive to the Harlem Globetrotters game, which both of our boys would largely ignore in favor of the consumption of large quantities of ice cream — followed by epic despair when this main course wasn’t  immediately followed by popcorn and a dill pickle. No, no one involved was pregnant.

It’s good to have confident children. Or so I’ve been told.