No Gibleys Were Harmed In Making This Picture

We took The Three Stooges, plus Cousin Jerry and one of Rakes little buddies to Chuck E. Cheese today where random chaos ensued.

First thing that happened was Trot not quite getting the whole "I need to stamp your LEFT hand", then him not seeing anything. Had to take him under the purple light to let him see he actually had a stamp and someone wasn't yanking his chain.

The next few hours went by in a haze of greasy pizza, screaming kids, and more noise than you'll hear in your average invasion of a small country. Mixed in was a sighting of Chuck himself where Trot, upon seeing the giant mouse with the over sized head, spent the rest of the time we were there yelling "Dad; Where did Maisey go?"

Seems like the little hooligan was confusing Chuck with his female counterpart Maisey from all our books we read. Try explaining all THAT to a 3 year old with potty training issues hopped up on pizza and caffeinated soda.

Throw in Rakes and his buddy playing in the Germ Fest known as The Maze, Ciera and Cousin Jerry going through tokens like Grant took Richmond, and me and Ang just trying to hold on for dear life and you've got yourself a typical visit to the Chucksters.

We left with 4 slices of un-eaten pizza, 3 new sippy cups, a crappy plastic worm, and some suckers to go along with the heartburn, beaten up ear drums, and several frayed nerves. After a trip to the fabric store to get Angie the apparently mystical clear thread (I have no idea what this is. Just that she had to have it and the place we went is the only place not named Karachi you can get it) we were on our way home until Rakes uttered the following.

"I left my wallet in the maze, Dad."

Mind you, this "wallet" is nothing more than a business card holder with old credit cards in it. Except for the Belks card that IS current that I stuck in my drawer because I never use it. As I repeatedly told Ang on the way back to the Hotel California of Pizzarias I never expected him to put it in his pocket and leave it in a toy at Chuck E. Cheese. Seriously; who would?

Naturally, it wasn't there, Ang had to call Belks and cancel the card, and I'm left wondering why in God's name nobody ever put any of this in one of those stupid "This will help you answer any problem you'll encounter in raising your children EVER" books I had to read back in the day when we were young, dumb, and totally unaware of what raising these little monsters REALLY meant.

Tomorrow, I'm writing a letter to those people who write "Parenting for Dummies" and demanding my money back.