Getting My Husband Out of Jail

Today was finally Saturday, the day of the Christmas parade and the school Winter Carnival. We bundled the kids up and walked to the town's main street (which is not Main Street, ironically. Main Street is a residential street that ends at the train tracks. Don't get me started on street names how half of them change names anyway if they do go over the tracks...). We only got a couple pieces of candy this time. Clearly we need to stick to the other side of the street. But we did see some cute little floats and some frozen kids from the local Head Start who were strangely catatonic for a trailer full of 3 year olds. This year there were only 11 fire trucks, as opposed to last year's 15 minutes worth. They only blared a little bit, thankfully. The band ended up playing at the end of the street where no people were (??) and not many people smiled or waved, but Ian didn't care. He really liked those fancy cars that had pretty girls on the tops. What? Girls? No, he liked the cars. And the truck that had bows all over it, but that was more of a mocking type of 'like'. But Ian saw Santa on the back of his fire engine and waved like a loon. We decided to skip the line of crazy, mean, rioting parents (and the innocent kids who just wanted to see Santa) and just see Santa at the school carnival.
We walked home from the parade, attacked the kids with tissues (that wind was Cooold) and drove to school. At first we weren't sure where to go, but then we found The Line. The Ticket Line, to be exact. And it was a whole lot longer than it looked from outside, but it did happen to snake past the water fountain and the bathrooms, so that was good. We finally got to the table. The tickets were 25 cents a piece, most activities took 2 tickets. Santa and the concession stand took cash. Excuse me? Santa is HOW MUCH? $5 for a picture with Santa? No personal photos at all? They let Ian and Erin talk to Santa (a REAL looking Santa with the real hair and beard and little belly! He was such a nice guy.) and sit on his lap, but it was a let down that we didn't have the money to pay for pictures. Ian chattered away to him and had to give him 2 hugs. sniff sniff. Erin wasn't so sure and would only get close if Daddy held her. Maybe we'll go on over to the mall and get some pictures there. Because we sure missed the freebie after the parade. Sheesh.
We talked to Ian's teachers for a bit and I admired their camera (it was so beautiful; Rachel, go ahead and drool).
Then we hit the games. Most of the games were 2 tickets. We did the Alphabet pond (think Duck Pond, but with floating letters) and the bean bag toss, where Ian kicked booty (clearly he got his coordination from my better half). Then we did the Yum Yum tree, where you pick a sucker out of the tree. If the stick has a mark on it, you get a special prize, but none of ours did, so we got to keep the sucker and get a piece of candy for trying. There was a kissing booth, where you closed your eyes and chose a Hershey kiss from a bowl. If you chose a red or green one (most of them were silver) you got a prize. Ian picked a green one, but he was more interested in eating the kiss. He still picked out a prize. And he got a stamp on his hand (he looked horrified when they offered to put it on his cheek) of a red kiss (kissing booth, get it?). There was a Pop Walk (pop as in Coke), where you do musical numbers. When the music stops, you stand on a number. If they draw your number, you get a 2-liter bottle of soda. Ian won on his second try. There was another, harder bean bag toss that Ian kicked booty at and won a beanie baby. Erin stole it and wouldn't give it back. It was a cat. She hugged it and talked to it for the rest of the afternoon. Then Ian got a spare at the bowling booth and got another beanie baby, a hammerhead shark this time. He hit the fishing booth and the cake walk (no luck there) and we started hearing the loudspeaker announcing that there were "warrants" for certain people. We had noticed a little corner that had been made up into a jail. With bars and everything, and two little old guys dressed up like cowboy sheriff's with badges, red bandanas and cowboy hats. It was great. Evidently, for one ticket (1 Ticket!) you could 'issue a warrant' for anyone of your choice. Then a 'deputy' would go find this person and escort them to jail, where they would serve their 2 minutes. We were getting Ian's face painted (I sneaked over to the concession stand to get a drink) when my HC's name was called over the loudspeaker. There was a dead silence, then a lot of laughing and vengeful snickering. I wasn't too happy because he transferred all the candy, prizes and 2-liter bottle over to me to hold and I was already holding Erin. He went and did his two minutes. When he got back, he counted our remaining tickets and started figuring how many people he could get into jail for paybacks. Later, we were standing in line at the cookie decorating table (4 tickets got you a huge Christmas tree-shaped sugar cookie, a little tub of green icing with a popsicle stick spreader and another tub of sprinkles, stars and a small red licorice string). Of course it took an ice age or more for all the kids to get it done, but it was so cute. Ian was working hard on his when the deputy went and got my HC AGAIN. This time he was really contemplating revenge. That jail was only about 3x3 and it was pretty full almost the whole time. I think a lot of people went by a few times just so they could laugh at my poor HC. He was giving the evil eye a lot, too. hehehe.
Funny part: Ian was decorating his cookie and there were two little girls across from him. One of them was in his class and they were chatting. She was having a hard time finishing her tree because she kept tasting the contents of her little tub of 'decorations.' Her friend kept tasting the icing. We had helped Ian with his icing so he could place every tiny sprinkle (clearly we would have been there for hours otherwise!) and he found his little candy star and put it at the top of the tree. The little girl in his class looked at Ian's star, then looked at her friend's star on her tree and then started digging around in her little container looking for it. "Where's my star?" she asked. Her friend crowded in to help her look. Ian glanced over, then resumed sprinkle placement. "Where's my star?" she repeated a few more times, each time more shrilly. She dumped the entire contents onto her paper plate, but to no avail. Her star was not there. Big gasp from her friend. "I don't see a star," I said, willing to go ask the teacher for another one to avoid a disaster. She took a deep breath. I cringed. "I guess I ate it," she said in a normal voice, and went back to decorating her cookie. After a minute, I laughed my head off.


Finally my Cute Convict got out of jail and raided my pockets for remaining money. He bought more tickets and used them all to place his acquaintances (anyone who could have possibly done it to him) in jail. Then we left.
Ian was not pleased. He really wanted to stay and play everything again. I just wanted to put Erin down and go to the bathroom.
Ian wasted no time in eating his cookie (though he did share a small chunk with Erin). I'm just glad that everyone is out of jail.