Mine

One thing is certain. The Nintendo DS is mine. I purchased it with my birthday money a couple of years ago in a fit of My-Parents-Never-Let-Me-Have-A-Game-Boy-And-Now-Is-MY-Time exuberance. Dan said I wouldn’t use it and that I should just buy a couple of new games for my phone. He was wrong. I did use it. For about a month. Then I bought some new games for my phone so I’d have one less device to carry around with me.

Magoo has since adopted the DS and feels strongly that it belongs to him. I will say again. I bought it with my own dee ay em en birthday money. The DS is mine. If I have to battle vocally for it in the back of a hay wagon with Magoo, Michael Jackson, Paul McCartney, and all the surviving Beatles, I will sing with my dying breath, “I’m a lover, not a fighter, but she’s mine. The doggone DS is mine.”

Last week we were chasing the bus in the swagger wagon. We do this sometimes. It’s fun to walk up the hill and get on the bus, but it really gets the blood pumping to drive slightly above the speed limit in hot pursuit of a fleeing yellow vehicle full of bobble-headed school kids, stopping behind the bus at each stop, shoving your kid out the van door and hoping he can run up alongside it and get on before it pulls off to the next stop. Super exciting stuff there.

I kid you not. Sometimes it’s taken two or three of these attempts before the driver has seen Magoo running up to catch the bus so he has to jump back in the van and we squeal out in pursuit again. Radness.

Well this particular morning we caught up to the bus and as it slowed, I slowed and dumped my seven-year-old out the sliding door. He ran like his life depended on it and in his haste, MY Nintendo DS slipped from the kangaroo pocket of his baseball hoodie and crashed to the sidewalk.

DSs are not allowed at school. As per school policy.

DSs are not allowed in his kangaroo pocket. As per my policy.

He knew he was busted. He started moving in slow motion, staring directly into my eyes as he bent down and slowly picked up the device as though trying to hypnotize me into not seeing what he was doing with his hands waaay down there on the ground.

Always maintain eye contact. Never surrender. His eyes were super wide though and he had this half-smile that said, “Oops?”

Then he pocketed the device and ran for the bus, making it just in time for a swift getaway.

The thing is, after I dropped Laylee off at her bus stop, I still had just enough time to drive over to Magoo’s school in the pouring rain and stand be-umbrellaed, waiting curbside as the bus pulled up to the school. As he stepped off the bus, I smiled at him, my palm outstretched. He dropped his head in defeat and slapped the DS in my hand, knowing it would be a long LONG time before he would be reunited with his beloved again.

Hey wait – MY beloved.