We were doing very well on the New England meander – until Portsmouth NH that is where the melt down of the brain of a six year old hit epic proportions. I heard a noise I had not heard before, shaped in the sound of the word “MEANIE!!!”
For some reason all I thought of was the movie Sophie’s Choice. It is sick but I was under a sort of duress of a nature only a child with a will of steel can create at an interstate intersection. We are a gentle family and have to think of strategies…but why that movie and its impossible terrible dilemma would come into mind is beyond me, especially as it has been maybe ten years since I thought of it. But I have to be honest and that is what happened. Blame pop culture if you must.
So it was left to him – fluffy the cat or your blankie. One must go for the duration. And on the I-95 as you enter Maine, at the tourist information lay-by in a group of trees, sitting on landscaped stones he said “blankie” and cried. He made the decision and then he returned to the car as full of remorse as Satan in Paradise Lost as he flung himself off the edge and into Hell, immediate and immersed in his awareness of his own damnation. OK, maybe not quite that full.
Then, within minutes of getting here, he played on the slip and slide and shot portland with the super soaker. Early into jammies, though. Damn early.