How to Effectively Coerce Your Child

My wife and I have driven westbound on State Street through downtown Geneva many times and have often seen a herd of people lined neatly outside of a pint-sized building, presumably somewhere enticing enough for people to wait in line, even in the cold, cold winter air. I don’t understand this concept of waiting in line; maybe when I was 20 in line at a punk bar with my fake ID, trying to score $7 Mint Juleps (mid-90’s remember) and the outside chance of getting a girl’s phone number scribbled and barely legible on a liquor-dampened napkin.

We became increasingly curious and wondering what in the Frog Legs was this place and why is it so fascinating?

Being migrants from that big, broad city thousands of miles east, we knew it had to be a restaurant of some kind; suburban museums aren’t sexy enough to merit ropes holding people back. Lego Land, sure.

There was a sign, but one so miniscule we couldn’t catch the writing while driving in the car. Perhaps we could have but we wanted to spare driving right through the Starbucks, shocking the Latte clerk.

Clue #2. Us city folk know from experience that hip joints that serve hip, Nuevo food like to hide who they are to gain traction and hype. If you can’t read the sign, yet there are salivating customers waiting outside, this must be the place to be.

We decided to check this place out, our second date in roughly three years unless you count waiting together in the car listening to the Beastie Boys while our son is in art camp as a date.

So we called our regular babysitter who we found online and failed to run a background check on to come over.

Helga Mammoth, with her rough carpenter hands and Stoli breath, came to watch G Frenzy and ChunChun. She didn’t hold back about her drinking the sauce. In fact, she told us that drinking was healthy for her, a Warsawian potion for healing. How could we argue that?

Our 4-year-old son was befuddled that his parents were dressed up and out of their normal everyday attire, track pants and college t-shirt full of holes for Dad, pajamas for Mom, so he threw a fit, blasting guttural screams. It was Sophie’s Choice. NO NO NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! as he was holding on to Mom’s leg. He had thrown hysterics before but this was Mommy and Daddy are never going to return type stuff.

We had to make a decision. Do we bag the hot, hip dinner date out and give Helga Mammoth $50 for her own woozy night out or relent and play 15 games of Duck Duck Goose?

I told him to man up and, if we don’t make it back, to sell his 15,000 toys on Ebay for some seed money and call his Aunt Florine and beg to let he and ChunChun to stay with them.

I won’t bore you too much with the date part. Cliff notes: Bien Trucha—at last we found the name!—was booked until June 2012 so we elbowed our way to the bar. Interesting crowd. Cool Ron in the corner with his new clubbing shirt looking for the ladies; Old Money St. Charles retirees knocking back Mojito bombs and a pack of Facebook Beauties who haven’t let go of Sorority-ville, snapping shot after shot on their IPhone. Click. OMG. So going to upload these tonight.

Antonio Banderas Jr. at the bar was handing out “Pinky Promises” to all the babes, my wife included (I politely joked that I had a pistol strapped on my calf. Am I really joking, pal?). This promise means "Return to me, baby" or something like that. Good marketing.

Helga kept calling and texting. G Frenzy this and G Frenzy that and on and on and banging and whining and I REFUSE TO GO TO BED HELLMAHHH.

I finally got on the phone and asked the Drunken Dame to hand G Frenzy the phone. I told him to comply with Helga Mammoth and yes, it was okay if he had a cookie with some of the pink powder on top (crunched up Benadryl). Works everytime.

Conquistadora, my wife, and I finished up our date with laughs, sweet poetic whispesr in each other ears and bad gas from the shredded shark tacos.

Once we got home, I wanted to check on my sweet little boy. He was softly curled up in his Toy Story themed bed. I woke him and told him one more incident like tonight and he won’t be having his birthday next year, we will call St. Nick and have him skip our house at Christmas and that he can find another route to Yale perhaps through 15 years of paper route money and an academic scholarship (Mom is really smart).

I kissed him on the cheek and headed for the loo.