Bad Boys, Bad Boys

My wife, Miranda Kopfschmertzen, and I had dinner with my in-laws on New Year’s Day as it is tradition to do so. Dinner was scrumtrelecent.

By about 9:30PM, we’d eaten our fill several times over and were quickly destined for a food coma. We took our leave of my in-laws and headed home.

The Nudge had come with us for the dinner festivities (which, again, were incredibly delicious), so he was riding in the back seat.

As we rolled up on our last intersection on the drive home, surrealness happened. We were turning left and the arrow was red, so we were stopped at the line and were the only car in the intersection.

A lone boy was on the sidewalk corner to our right. He began walking into the crosswalk toward our car. This caught my attention because according to the pattern of lights and the red hand, it was not appropriate for him to cross the street.

Then he started veering from the crosswalk toward my car. Mind you, at no point did this kid ever seem threatening. On hte contrary, he seemed kind of dopey and possibly drunk. Still, I suddenly said aloud, “I think this dude intends to get into our car!” and I savagely attacked the lock-all-doors button on my console.

And still he continued toward the car. And sure as the day is long, he did indeed reach for the door handle for the back seat.

And right then, right when he started reaching for the handle I suddenly stopped worrying about the safety of my family and started worrying for the wayward boy, for I suddenly remembered that The Nudge was in the car and that The Nudge does not like people.

As soon as the kid touched the door handle The Nudge went from orange to red. He went berserk. Absolutely Apie. Suddenly the kid snapped to. He realized something was amiss. He threw his hands up and took a step back in wide-eyed terror. His mind seemed to be trying to decipher the situation.

But before he could begin to make sense of what just happened, red and blue lights started flashing as if coming from everywhere. While the scene was playing out, I hadn’t noticed but a black and white had rolled up behind us. The police officer too had thought the whole situation awful strange. And it reached a point where he felt it necessary to intervene. Suddenly the kid turned toward the police car and raised his hands even higher.

The poor boy was so befuddled. His solution was to make a b-line to the curb with his hands still raised.

The light turned green and I made my left turn then pulled over to see how things played out. Another car pulled up to the intersection and someone got out and headed over to the kid and the police officer.

My guess is that the other car (which looked similar to mine in the dark) belonged to friends of the kid. They were coming to get him at that intersection.

Hilarity ensues.