Passengers

The girls are napping, Amanda is out at Subway picking up the two platters of sandwiches and I'm using the facilities.

We have 20 minutes. Time enough to finish packing up the fan, wake up the girls, make sure they have their socks and shoes on and shove off to Tumbleweed Park for Olivia's 3rd birthday extravaganza. Two months ago we rented one of the gazebos between the hours of 3 and 6 p.m. on Sunday, November 9 for this shindig.

The weather is finally cool - 72 degrees, but there's unfortunate cloud cover and a nasty bit of wind that seems to be getting nastier with every gust.

I'm now watching the Packers blow it when Amanda comes in saying, "The sandwiches aren't ready yet. I have to go back."

"Great," says I.

The girls awaken. It is now 10 minutes to go time. All of a sudden 10 minutes doesn't seem like a whole lot of time. Amanda takes on Olivia, I handle Sydney. Sydney's been fighting a little cold for the past few days and isn't too thrilled to be up.

We head downstairs, get together the last-minute items (including the green balloon Olivia insists must come along), get in the car and go. I follow Amanda to Subway in the mini-van.

The ominous clouds - those gray fluffy bastards that have been threatening rain drops all damn day - are pissing all over Chandler, Arizona.

"Are you serious," I say.

"AH YOUUU SERIOUS! AH YOUUUU SERIOUS!" mocks Olivia. A true three-year-old.

"Quiet down back there," I say.

"K, Daddy."

We pull up to Subway. Amanda gets out. She puts out her hands and shoots me a look. It's still raining. She's not happy.

While we wait for Mommy, Olivia has a fit, no, not just a fit, a skin melting conniption. Her balloon string is caught in her seatbelt and she wants it free. Mommy emerges from Subway with two giant platters and a bunch of other stuff - napkins, condiments, utensils, etc.

Olivia's still screaming.

Tumbleweeds Park is five minutes away. We get there in two.

I turn the mini-van off, Olivia stops screaming. Sydney is all smiles.

I open the car door and the wind nearly tears the fucker off its hinges. Marvelous. I stare out into the park. One of the pavilions has some sort of Mormon revival going on with guitars and speakers and cheering and grilled food. Two of the gazebos near ours are housing birthday parties that are just finishing up - you can tell by the obscene amount of litter and irritated partygoers scattered about.

Amanda strolls over to the mini-van. She'll take the girls if I start hauling stuff over to the gazebo. Absolutely.

Two of the three big-ass balloons we purchased earlier in the day are tied to the cooler, which I pull out of the van. The wind tugs at the balloons like a thief. The balloons dance and whip around. One of the balloons, a two-foot-tall Dora the Explorer bops me in the head as if to say, "Get me back in the van, dickhead. I'm not built for this kind of shit."

Two more steps and Dora tears away.

The wind carries her over the head of a family having a picnic, who seconds earlier expressed total admiration of the awesomeness of the Dora balloon to their toddler. I'm not fast enough to catch her. Knowing this, I just stand there and watch her fly away. In this wind she'll be to Queen Creek in less than 10 minutes. In this wind she'll be to New Mexico by morning. A part of me feels bad for the small animal that is sure to come across this balloon and die while trying to ingest it.

I press on.

I might have lost Dora, but I've still got the big-ass "3" balloon in tow. It might be bouncing around, but this fucker isn't escaping me, no sir. I've got a wicked ninja death grip on its string and it's staying with...

...that kid on the bike is coming pretty fast.

Anyhow, the "3" balloon is going to surv...

"Move! Move outta the way!" says the kid on the bike steering directly at me. He's got miles of bike path on either side of me, but this 10-year-old is coming right at me.

"MOVE!"

PAOOOOOWWWW!!!

It happens in slow motion. The wind pulls my beautiful "3" balloon into the path of this reckless child, who tears through it like a high school football team bursting through the homecoming banner.

I am dejected. I am distraught. I am a failure to my wife and my daughters. I couldn't protect $30.00 worth of bad-ass balloons. They're gone.

Before she even acknowleges the missing mylar, I confess that they are no more. Between the weather and this new development, Amanda doesn't want to hear anymore. I don't blame her. This was supposed to be a special day and it's already way less than stellar.

I tell Amanda I'm moving the cars closer. I'll get the small car first and haul all of the food over, then I'll get the van and drag over the rest of the goods. Olivia is running around and not listening (already). Sydney is not a happy camper in this wind.

I look in the direction from which the wind is coming. Sure enough, there's the haboub. Particulates so massive in quantity they're close to blocking out the sun.

A dust storm is eminent.

I move the small car and haul the sandwiches out to the gazebo. Amanda is laughing.

She can't stop laughing. She's almost in tears she's laughing so hard.

"What?" I say.

"Just put that stuff down. I'm not going to tell you until you put that stuff down. You're gonna get really mad," she says through the laughter.

I set down the sandwich trays. "OK, what?"

"Look at Sydney," she says.

I look at my youngest. Nothing strange. She's hanging out in the playpen shoving her hands in her mouth and smiling as usual... wait... her pants are wet.

"Her pants are wet," I say.

"Yeah, and look at her plumber's crack."

I put two and two together as soon as Amanda says, "You forgot to put a diaper on the baby." She cracks up some more. I'm not sure if I can laugh.

I have to go home and get poor little Sydney another pair of pants, so I go home and get poor little Sydney another pair of pants.

When I return, some guests have arrived - a shocker to us because the wind has now taken a turn for the worse and we're now chewing on bits of the haboub. Dust is everywhere. It's in my eyes, it's in my mouth, it's in my daughters' eyes and mouths. We're trying to keep the food covered up. We're trying to keep an eye on the kids. We're trying to have a good time. We're trying not to shiver.

We're trying.

Everyone whom we invited shows up. These are good people. These are people, who if they now ask me to kill someone for them, I'll consider it, because they showed up to my daughter's birthday party in some of the most ridiculous weather Arizona has seen in months.

Nobody anticipated this, so nobody brought jackets or hats or thermoses full of hot chocolate to keep warm. We speed things along. Not much chance for the kids to screw around on the playground equipment, but that's OK.

With extreme precision and a little elbow grease, Olivia tears through her presents and emerges with a massive haul - some DVDs, plush toys, a Snow White doll, girly playclothes accessories and whatnot.

Then it's cake time.

Frosting everywhere. Dust everywhere. Chattering teeth. Exaggerated speech. Kids running off. Frustrations galore.

All I can do anymore is laugh to myself.

The sun goes down and the wind subsides. The lights go on. It's about an hour before we needed to leave, but we're all saying our goodbyes. We can't thank our guests for hanging in there with us. They're all happy to be here.

These folks are gems. I should get to know them better. I should babysit their kids so they can go out for a nice evening. Good people, through and through.

Just about everything we hauled out of the car and the van, we've got to haul back in.

The father of the little girl whose birthday party was going on at the adjacent gazebo walks back to the parking lot with me. He's exasperated. He's so angry about the weather.

"Yeah, but it's a birthday you'll never forget, right?" I say.

He thinks about it and hrumphs out a little laugh, "You're right."

We're tired. We're hungry. It's been a long afternoon. The cars are packed up and we're ready to go back home - where we can once again unload the cars.

On the way home I ask Olivia if she had a good day.

She says, "Yeah."

I ask her if she had fun.

She says, "Yeah."

I tell her I love her.

She says, "I love you too, Daddy."

"You love your Mommy and Sydney too?"

"Yeah."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, Daddy."

Yeah.