The man with a mustache

On Wednesday my friend Sarah and I went to Cosi (a children's hands on science museum). For added fun we took my 2 boys and their friend Seth and Sarah's 4 boys and their friend DJ. Princess Katie also tagged along to keep the boys in line the way only a bossy 4 year old girl can. That's right folks.... 8 boys and one 4 year old girl. Sounds great. Right!? With the exception of a few small bumps, bruises and hurt ego's (there was way to much testosterone) it was a really great day. We stayed much longer than I anticipated. I actually told Lisa when I picked Seth up that morning "we will only be there a few hours.". We were having such a great time we stayed 6 hours.

This intro brings me to the story of the man with the mustache:

Cosi is located downtown in our city. Like every downtown city I have been to, ours is surrounded by a not so great area. These areas are filled with many colorful personalities. One of which was up bright and early perusing the parking lot of the children's museum. This person was a middle aged fellow who wanted to see if he could scare a few bucks out of the suburban, mini van driving mom's who frequent such places on weekday mornings. As I got out of my car and was setting up the stroller (yes Katie still loves her stroller, but that's another post) I heard this gentleman shouting things at the mothers and asking for money. When my kids wanted to know what he was doing and why he was talking the way he was I must have muttered something along the lines of "I think he has been drinking or is on drugs" and we hurried along for our fun filled day.

When we left the museum a mere 6 hours later we thought little of the man in the parking lot. We were talking about the great time we had and where we were going to get a treat. As we settled on McDonald's sundaes Seth shouts "Ms. Lacy there is the man from this morning and he is sleeping on the sidewalk!". We were a few miles from the museum at this point and sure enough there was the man. He was in fact sound asleep on the sidewalk in front of a convenience store. Being the moment seizing type mom I am I quickly decided to use this as a teaching opportunity. I say to the kids "This is the kind of thing that happenes when you drink!" "You think you are having fun and then all of the sudden you are putting your life in danger." I then start rattling off some dangerous things that could happen to him.... he could be hit by a car that runs up on the sidewalk (I was stretching a bit), someone could run him over with a bike, a dog could attack him, he could be robbed, etc....

At this point Justin my sweet, innocent 8- year-old boy said:

"Or, someone with a permanent marker in his pocket may come along and draw a mustache on his face, tie some string to his arms, and pretend he is a puppet!"

He was completely serious! We all laughed and I think Seth said it best when he said "Justin, buddy, you are on of a kind!" And he is.

If only we could all think like an 8-year-old boy. The world would be a much safer place. We would likely all have sharpie mustaches, but safer we would be!