The Magician's Uncle

Back in the day when I was driving Gung's old Tercel, I used to take Bryan to many places. We'd go to the park, or Japantown...or the park, or Japantown. Sometimes we'd go to the store to get something for Mom or Dad. But it was mainly to go to the park.

One day it was business as usual. Bryan woke up at 6:30am, muck around in his crib for about half-an-hour, then start to cry. That was my que to wake up, go to the kitchen and heat his milk for 15 seconds on high, bring it back to him, and while he was drinking from his bottle, I changed his diaper. Then I threw his diaper in the hamper because Gah believed in getting cotton diapers at the time and tossed Bryan back in his crib. Then I dove back in to bed and slept. Another half hour went by until Bryan finally finished his bottle and tossed it out of his crib. He would muck around in his crib for another 20 minutes or so before crying, and then that was my que to get up, again. I took him out and let him go roam the unexplored regions of Mom and Dad's house. But only if someone else was awake and available to watch him.

It was during one of these days when I was taking Bryan somewhere. I'm not sure where, exactly. But I do remember that it must have been a weekday, because my car was parked across the street, safe from the street-cleaning ticket-writing cops. So across the street we went with Bryan trotting along side me holding one hand, and me holding his car-seat in the other. I opened the passenger side car door and told Bryan to stay, as I had done a hundred times before. Then I climbed in to the back seat and secured his car-seat to the seatbelt. Then I turned around to get Bryan and put him in his chair. But he was gone!

My immediate first thought was, what happened to Bryan??!! My second immediate thought was, Gah's going to kill me!!! I frantically looked around for the little munchkin, but he was nowhere in the immediate vacinity. Then I broadened my search and saw a little munchkin about 1/4 of a block away running down the street. Thank God he was on the sidewalk!

I then charged down the sidewalk as fast as I could towards the fleeing Bryan. Fleeing? What was he fleeing from. As I caught up to Bryan, it became apparent why he was running away. Well, he actually wasn't running away from me or the car, but he was chasing his little super-ball that he had dropped. And he must have dropped it because he was almost on the verge of tears as he chased after it. He finally stumbled and fell, but he didn't injure himself. But he frantically tried to get up to continue his pursuit and finally he burst in to tears. By that time, I was upon him. I picked him up and then took a few extra steps to retrieve his ball. Then I brought him back to the car, thanking God the entire way that he didn't run in to the middle of the street.

Normally, I'm pretty good at disappearing. But on this day, Bryan was the Magician.