RUN!!!

Last night we did some homework for Joey.  Guess what it was?  No, seriously, guess. 

OKFINE, I'll just tell you.  We watched The Dead Poet's Society, one of my favorite movies.  Joey had to watch it and The Emperor's Club for one of his education classes and is doing a review of the movies.

The movie was done about 9:00 and Joey said, "Let's go on a walk back to Blockbuster and return the movie."

It is over a mile to Blockbuster.  And it was late.  And dark. Also coldish outside.

"OK, let's do it!"  I said, putting on my shoes and extra warm sweatshirt.

Considering we didn't leave the house until 9:20, we made excellent time.  The entire walk wound up being about 2.5 miles and we did it in 42 minutes.  We weren't really breaking any landspeed records, but it was fun to walk and talk and burn some of Henry's energy off.

The sprinklers were watering the grass as we walked back into our complex.  We always get amused by the sprinklers that someone has kicked the top off and shoot into the air like Old Faithful.

"Hey, cool.  Look at that messed up sprinkler!"  Joey pointed to a geyser-like spray arcing over the sidewalk.  "Let's run through it." He suggested.

"OK," I agreed, "but 10 bucks says it'll stop spraying just as get ready to run through it."

I should have made him shake on it.  That darn sprinkler shut off as we were two strides away, subsequently taking away our opportunity to run underneath it.  (It was shooting so high into the air we could have done it, too, and barely gotten wet at all.)

"Stupid sprinkler," I said, and glared at it as we walked by.

Around the corner we came upon another sprinkler, this one gently misting the grass the way they were designed to.

"How do you think...." I paused at the sprinkler and looked at it.

"What are you doing?" Joey asked, but he didn't need to.  He knew exactly what I was thinking.  I wound up my right leg and kicked that sprinkler as hard as I could.

I missed, so nothing happened.

Joey tried not to laugh.  I kicked again, several times, and actually made contact with the sprinkler once, but not enough to knock the sprinkler guard off and cause a geyser of water.

I crouched down and examined the sprinkler hardware.  I tried to pull the guard off but that didn't work, so I stood up again and started kicking at it.

Joey glanced around and yelled, "Smith!"

Smith Patrol is the rent-a-cop service we have in our apartment complex, so I ducked down and scooted away. Then I realized there was no Smith patrol so I glared at him and went back to kicking the sprinkler.

"You keep missing," Joey smirked at me.

"RAR," I responded to him.  My hand-eye coordination is bad, but my foot eye coordination is worse.  Especially when it's dark, the object is small, and there's water involved.

I'd had enough.  I went for one last, solid kick and...

WHAM!

I actually succeeded and kicked the sprinkler guard off.  Water sprayed everywhere.  I stood there, shocked by my victory for just a moment.  Then,

"RUN!!!" I stage-whisper yelled.  (Is that even possible?)

Joey and I ran away from the geyser I had created (and was no half soaked from) giggling like school children and watching behind us to see if we'd gotten caught.

"What do you think it would be like to be married to someone normal?" I asked Joey as we rounded the corner and felt very Out Of Danger.

"I have absolutely no idea," replied Joey.

And he probably never will.