A Little Reminiscing

I went to visit at the Dark Side again, just because I promised the kids I would come by before Christmas and I always keep my promises to them. I figure there are enough people in their lives who break promises on a regular basis that I don't need to be yet another one.

Of course Nick's initial reaction when I showed up was, once again, "Oh God. It's her again." These kids try so damned hard to act like they don't care that I'm there but in reality, I could see the smile starting while Nick pretended to be ignoring me. His mom and two brothers were visiting, doing the whole Christmas present thing, and I noticed that he was showing his younger brother how to work a Rubix Cube.

"So Nick. Do you remember the time you tried to solve one of those in the classroom?"

"I did?"

"Yeah you did. You solved it by smashing it to pieces and throwing it in the trash can."

"Oh yeah! I remember that!"

*****

An hour later, Nick and I walked down to the basement to see one of my former TA's who is now an outreach worker (so damned proud of her). Nick leans against a doorway and says, "Do you remember the time I threw Mike across the room and he landed in a cabinet?"

"Yeah I remember that."

*****

Ten minutes later, sitting in the lunch room, Nick puts down his fork and says, "Hey do you remember the time I went on the run for three days and then just randomly showed back up in Science class, all dirty and shit?"

"Yeah. I remember that."

*****

"Hey, do you remember the time the Department of Education was here and we were making up all kinds of different names for them like the Department of Assholes and the Department of Dirty Hippies?"

"Yeah Nick. I remember that."

"Yeah. I remember you had to shut the door because we all got a little inappropriate but you were laughing too hard to yell at us."

"Yeah. I remember that."

*****

And his parting shot today? "Yeah? I got enough game to bag you!"

Story of my life kid.