We woke up the next morning to uncontrollable crying. Riley. Casey and I shot out of bed just as he was entering the room with Sydney’s arm draped over his shoulder.

“Sweetie, what’s wrong?” Casey asked, dropping to her knees and checking his body for injuries.

Wiping at the tears with the palm of his hands, he sniffled, “She didn’t come.”

“Who didn’t come?”

“The Tooth Fairy.”

It felt like I’d taken a punch to the nuts. I forgot the fucking Tooth Fairy! I had one job last night, just one, and it was to not forget to put money under Riley’s pillow. Epic, goddamn fail. Casey and I traded horrified glances, each trying to blame the other for dropping the ball. Her eyes were all accusation and mine all contempt. Sure, I forgot, but it was Casey’s fault for trusting me with such an important job in the first place.

Trying to figure a way to make this right, I rumpled Riley’s hair and said, “Dude. It’s probably there. You just didn’t look hard enough.”

Casey flashed me her most hopeful face as if she thought maybe I hadn’t just ruined this boy’s faith in fictional fairies forever. Hell, I might as well just out Santa Claus while I’m at it. The grim shake of my head put an end to her optimism. Not only had I forgotten the Tooth Fairy, but I was also lying out my teeth to a seven-year-old boy.

“Nope,” Syd said, her disappointment in us evident with every subsequent word she spoke. “We pulled the sheets off. No money. No note. No nothing. ”

“The Tooth Fairy hates me.” Riley collapsed to the floor, sobbing.

“No. No, sweetheart. She loves you.” The kindness Casey spoke was reserved exclusively for Riley. I got nothing but angry eyes and a scornful mouth miming the word ‘Money.’

“It’s still early,” she explained to him. “Maybe the Tooth Fairy was just delayed. Why don’t we go to the bathroom and get cleaned up? Then we’ll look up her phone number, okay?”

Riley looked between us, his sad eyes devoid of trust, but because he had no other choice, he sucked up his snot and followed Casey to the bathroom.

Once the two had disappeared, I felt another scornful gaze burrowing into me. “Really, Rock Star?” Sydney said, planting her hand on her hip. “You can’t spare a dollar bill?”

“That’s not the issue. I just forgot.”

“Who forgets the Tooth Fairy? You lose a tooth, you get the money. It’s not difficult.”

“Yeah, Syd. I get the concept,” I said, grabbing for my wallet and hastily opening it up. Shit! I only had fifties and hundreds.

“Go snag me Casey’s purse from the front room,” I demanded of my niece, sweat now dampening my forehead. Sydney took off in the opposite direction as I searched the drawers for loose change. She came back panting. “I can’t find it.”

“You can’t find the purse?” I blurted out a little more aggressively than I would have liked.

“Hey, don’t shoot the messenger.”

“Okay, sorry. Do you have any money?”

“I’m ten.”

“Right. I’ve got to think.” Then it hit me… Lassen. He’d have change. But just as I was about to run to the front of the bus, I heard Casey call out a warning loud enough for me to hear.

“Let’s go see if the Tooth Fairy made it here yet.”

“Shit!” I whisper-swore.

Sydney’s eyes widened as she slapped her hands over her mouth and started jumping up and down. Damn, she dealt with stress worse than me. Out of options, I grabbed a fifty out of my wallet and slid it under his pillow just as the bathroom door swung open and Riley ran for his bed. Syd squeaked and buried her head in my stomach.

Gripped with anxiety, Casey rushed to my side. “Please tell me you took care of it?”

“Oh, he took care of it, all right,” Sydney said, finding great amusement in our shared trials.

We heard Riley gasp and then a sudden whoop of happiness. “No way!” he yelled. “A fifty-dollar bill?”

Casey gaped at me. “You can’t give him fifty dollars, Jake. The going rate for a tooth is one.”

“Yeah, well, you could’ve given me a couple more minutes to secure the ransom.”

Casey might not have been thrilled by the dollar amount, but one person sure was. Riley was thoroughly delighted by the generosity of the tour bus Tooth Fairy, and he let his happiness soar, shouting to the heavens as he kissed his fifty-dollar bill. “I love you, Tooth Fairy,” he proclaimed. “And I’m sorry I called you a diarrhea head.”

“See?” I said to Casey. “He’s happy. Disaster averted.”

Syd nodded her head in agreement. “I’m knocking my tooth out tonight.”

* * *

Although I’d proven my lack of trustworthiness with the Tooth Fairy incident, people kept giving me more chances to screw up. And when I said people, I meant Casey. She seemed to have more faith in me than I was worth. The kids had been with us nearly three weeks, and during that time, Casey had taken on the vast majority of childcare. She’d been wearing thin from daily outings with Sydney and Riley, working her freelance job, and making sure the kids were emotionally secure, all while I continued on with my normal routine.

Occasionally I joined her and the kids, but more often than not, I had commitments that needed tending to. She understood that and it wasn’t an issue… until I had a day off. Then I was fair game, and there was nowhere to hide.

Take today, for example. Casey had a deadline looming, and while I’d been hanging out with the kids – the three of us had been engaged in parallel play, me on my keyboard and them with their toys – apparently that wasn’t enough.

“I have to finish this by tonight, and honestly, I need a little break.”

“Yeah. Sure. We’ll play some video games.”

“No,” she said abruptly, the word bursting from her mouth aggressively. My eyes expanded in response. Seeing my surprise, Casey tried for a calmer approach, but I’m not going to lie, it still came out like a youth football coach barking orders out to all his pint-sized players. “Video games are noisy and someone always gets mad – usually it’s you. No, what I want is for you to take them away… FAR, FAR away… for just a few hours.”

“Oh. Do you mean like…outside? By myself? Without you?”

“Yes, Jake, that’s what I mean.”

She wanted them, and me, gone. It was a fairly straightforward demand: take the kids away for a few hours or die a long and brutal death. Okay, so maybe it wasn’t that dramatic, but I wasn’t keen to find out just how far she’d go to secure a little freedom. After all, Casey was looking especially disheveled and fidgety. Just the fact that it was noon and she still hadn’t changed out of her pajamas or brushed her hair was indication enough that, if I balked at her request, shit was going down.

When Casey had the whole Medusa thing going on, I listened. No sense in needlessly turning to stone. Besides, she’d committed me to the task before even asking. Refusing was not an option. The only question now was how much effort she’d require me to put in.

“Okay…um…,” I said. “Where am I supposed to take them?”

“I don’t know. I just Google ‘fun things to do with kids in the area,’” she said, distracted. “You can do this, can’t you?”

No. I was pretty sure I couldn’t. In fact, I was fairly convinced that I was nowhere near competent enough to go out on my own with two kids, and I was about to confess that to Casey until I caught sight of her eyes. They were blazing hot, as if she were preparing for my stoning. Maybe messing with her right now would not be the best choice. No, I could most likely do this. It was just for a few hours. Besides, they were two little kids. How hard could they possibly be?

“Sure, babe, no problem,” I said, as an idea, a really goddamn good idea, popped into my head. Kyle. “I’ll get my brother to come with me, and we’ll take them somewhere.”

“Kyle can’t go. He’s picking up Kenzie at the airport today.”

Ah, shit. I wanted to stomp my feet and complain, but I was entirely too old for that behavior to be cute anymore. There was no way around it. I was going out by myself with the kids. Today was going to suck balls. With no options left, it was time to be a man. Placing my hand on her shoulder, I bent down to kiss her cheek. “No worries. I’ll take care of everything. You go get some work done, and I’ll wrangle up the herd.”

“Thank you. You’re a lifesaver. Can you shut the door behind you?”

And then there was just me… and them… in the wide, open world. Did anyone else see a problem with that? If there was a guy less qualified to babysit kids than I was, I’d like to meet the hapless dude. I mean, I was a decent playmate to Sydney and Riley, and had become a reluctant slave to their every want and need, but that didn’t mean I could be trusted to keep them safely by my side in a public place.

From my position plastered up against the bedroom door, I watched the two kids lying on their stomachs on the floor of the bus, happily watching YouTube videos together. They looked so sweet and innocent, but I knew better. These moments of peace were actually just them fully charging up their batteries so they could then use their stored energy against me later.

Sydney, sensing my presence, held up her empty plastic bowl and without even bothering to make eye contact, asked, “Can I get some more berries, please?”

Pushing away from the safety of my bedroom door, I walked over and grabbed her bowl. After filling it with some more berries, I handed it back to her. She thanked me, but again, no eye contact.

“Can I get some more berries too, please?” Riley asked, not taking his hands or eyes off the screen. Instead of handing his bowl to me, he just kicked it over. I picked it up off the floor and filled it with berries too.

“Oh, and Jake?” Sydney called out. “Crackers too.”

Irritated, I grasped the kitchen counter attempting to hold my tongue. Who did they think I was, their personal servant? I didn’t see any obvious injuries that might prevent them from getting to their own feet and preparing something tasty. I walked back and handed the berries to Riley.

Sydney turned and raised a brow at me. “Did you forget my crackers?”

“Nope,” I said, defiantly. “I’m just not going to get them for you.”

“Really?” she asked, intrigued by my rebellion.

“Really, Syd. I’m not your snack bitch. Get them yourself.”

I now had both kids’ undivided attention, and once they saw the smile on my face, they understood I was kidding. The two dissolved into hysterical laughter. At least my swearing had their attention, and what Casey didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her. It was time to get this show on the road. With the clap of my hands and the boom of my voice, I announced, “Who wants to go on an adventure with me today?”

Riley jumped from the floor in an instant and flung himself at me. I caught him mid-flight. I took that as a yes. Sydney was more practical in her response.

“Just you?” she asked, sounding every bit as skeptical as I felt.

“It looks that way.”

“You sure that’s a good idea?”

“No.” I laughed. “It’s not a good idea at all, but I don’t have a choice. So what do you say?”

A wide smile broke out across her face as she eyed me with a splash of mischief. “Heck, yeah, I want to go. This ought to be good.”

“Yay. Yay. Triple yay!” Riley sang out, obsessively repeating the same phrase until Syd covered his mouth with her hand.

“I wouldn’t get too excited, Ri, he’s probably just taking us to some boring baby park.”

It was obvious by her tone that Sydney had no faith in my abilities, but she underestimated me. I was no ordinary snack bitch. No. I was a goddamn rock star, and if I couldn’t bring the fun, no one could.

“No, Syd, not a boring baby park,” I mimicked her condescending attitude. “We’ll go wherever you guys want to go.”

So that was my first mistake.

I was such a rookie. Who let me off the bench in the first place? The only positive that came from my blunder was that I learned a valuable parenting lesson: never let kids be part of the decision making process when it came to outings. Because if you did, they’d choose Chuck E. Cheese every single time.

Mistake number two was requiring my niece and nephew to be clean and presentable. Unbeknownst to me, with kids this age, some assistance and assembly was required. Had I known what a production number it would become, I would’ve dragged two little snot monsters around all day and been happier for it.

Sydney refused my help, proclaiming she could manage the task on her own; but Riley – oh, Riley! – he was like three kids in one. The boy stood in the bathroom for five minutes just waiting for me to come in and turn the water on. He didn’t even bother to call me. He just waited there in the bathroom naked, driving his matchbox car all over the basin. Had I not popped my head in to see if he was done, he might have stood there all day.

And once he did finally manage to shower, Riley needed help with everything. I had to towel dry his hair and brush his teeth and help him into his clothes and tie his shoes, all while he played. I had no idea what kids their ages should be capable of, but I was fairly convinced that Riley was just playing me so he didn’t have to do any of the work.

My third mistake was inviting Lassen to come along.

I knocked on his partition. “Lassen?”

He opened immediately like he was engaged in a game of peekaboo and let out a quick, jolting growl.

“Oh, shit.” I jumped back.

“Sorry, I thought you were the kids,” he grumbled.

“That’s how you greet them?” I asked in surprise.

“What do you want, Jake? I’m busy.”

“Since we both have the day off, I was thinking we could hang out… go to lunch or something.”

Instinctively I knew adding the kids into the equation would not go over well, so I chose to leave out that valuable piece of information. So too did I understand that any mention of Chuck E. Cheese’s would be viewed like the petri dish of death for a germaphobe like Lassen, so I omitted that too. At this point, my information was given out strictly on a need-to-know basis.

“All right. Sure,” he replied. “That sounds fun.”

If he only knew just how much fun he was about to have…

I went back to check on the kids’ progress. Sydney was wearing purple sweats and an orange t-shirt with the saying, “The cool kid just showed up.” I had a good laugh at that before deeming her ready to go. Riley had switched the shirt I’d just dressed him in, and the neon yellow one he was now wearing was inside out, but once I corrected it, I was happy with my colorful troops.

Mistake number four was having the kids say goodbye to Casey.

“Are you serious?” she asked me, just the hint of a smile on her face.

“What?”

“Jake, they can’t go out like that. Sydney doesn’t even match.”

“She doesn’t?”

“No. You can’t put purple and orange together, and look at her hair. She needs to comb it, at least. And Riley, is that your pajama top? Wait – does he have shampoo in his hair?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean, you don’t know? You didn’t help him shower?”

“No. Was I supposed to?”

“Well, he has shampoo in his hair, so yeah, you probably needed to help him.”

Casey got up from her table and shooed the kids back into the bathroom. A few minutes later they came back looking clean and color-coordinated. I wasn’t sure what type of black magic she’d employed, but I wanted some of it.

With a sly smile, Casey grabbed my face in her hand and kissed my lips. “You’re funny. It’s a wonder you make it out the door everyday on your own.”

“I know. It’s a flippin’ miracle,” I agreed, happy to see her less stressed.

“Thank you for doing this for me. I really appreciate it.” Casey then leaned in and whispered, “I’ll make it up to you later.”

I grinned. “I’m going to Chuck E. Cheese’s for you, so yeah, you’d better.”

“Chuck E. Cheese’s?” She gasped as if I’d just told her I was taking them for a spin on an alien spacecraft. In hindsight, maybe that would have been easier. “By yourself?”

“No, I’m bringing Lassen and Vadim, just in case Chuck E. gets handsy.”

Casey shook her head uncertainly. “When I said take them out for a few hours, I assumed you’d start small, like a park or something. Chuck E. Cheese’s is like the big leagues, Jake. Are you sure you know what you’re getting yourself into?”

I shrugged. How hard could it be? “I’ll be fine. Get your work done and take a nap. We’re going to have a great time.”

I announced the last sentence loud enough for the kids to hear. They yelled their approval.

Moments later, Lassen crawled out of his hole. Since the kids’ arrival, he’d been hiding out in the front of the bus as much as possible. He let me know every chance he got how unhappy he was with the current living arrangement. And I’d let him know that I didn’t care what he thought. Lassen was spoiled. He’d had it good for too long. It was time for him to pay his dues.

My driver stopped dead in his tracks when he saw the kids’ excited faces. Lassen’s eyes immediately found mine and they narrowed to angry little slits. Just wait until he figured out where we were going. Those slits would be pointed missiles.

“You ready?” I asked, in a high-pitched and overly excited voice. The kids ate it up, running and screaming out of the bus.

Casually, I walked passed Lassen, purposely avoiding the eye daggers he was shooting at me. “You coming?”

With a loud, exaggerated huff, Lassen stomped off the bus.

I had hoped to surprise my disgruntled driver with our mystery destination, but Riley was enthusiastically belting out a song of his own creation, appropriately titled, “I can’t wait to get to Chuck E. Cheese.” Interestingly enough, he just repeated the chorus over and over. I was going to have to work with him a bit on his songwriting skills.

The scowl on Lassen’s face had not eased one bit the entire car ride. Maybe I thought he’d gradually accept his fate, but by the looks of it, he was going to hate me for a very long time.

After pulling into the parking lot, he leaned over and whispered a threat for my ears only. “I won’t forget this.”

Walking into the establishment, I immediately understood what Casey meant by calling it the big leagues. This place was teeming not only with sugared-up kids but wildly frustrated adults as well. I glanced at Lassen, who was already holding his hands over his ears. I had to agree – the sound level in Chuck E. Cheese’s was unlike anything I’d experienced before, and I was used to music blasting in my ears on a near daily basis. It was an odd mix of screaming kids, pop music, pinging and binging of hundreds of machines, and the sounds of “Happy Birthday” being sung every few minutes by Chuck E. and friends.

I grabbed Lassen by the arm to move him along. He’d gone into some freaky survival mode, complete with glazed over eyes and emotional detachment. It was like the lights were on but nobody was home.

“You all right there, bud?” I asked, patting his back. “I’m going to need you to snap out of this because you and I are about to divide and conquer. Which one do you want, Sydney or Riley?”

“I want to go home.”

“That’s not one of your options. If you don’t choose, I’ll pick one for you.”

Sydney and Riley had two totally different approaches to enjoying their day. Syd wanted tickets, lots of tickets. Apparently her strategy was to hoard as many as possible so that she then could trade them in for a toy, which in the end would cost four times what it would have at Target.

Riley didn’t give a rat’s ass about the tickets. He was all about the games, and this particular place seemed to have hundreds of them to choose from. The minute I stepped foot in the establishment, I knew keeping both kids happy was not possible without a tag team approach, and that’s why I was now giving Lassen the option.

“Sydney,” he mumbled.

“That’s the spirit,” I said, grinning.

Lassen spent the next hour or so following Sydney around and mindlessly supplying her with endless amounts of tokens. It had been a wise choice, indeed, because there was no way my friend could have survived the more physically demanding activities Riley was choosing, like Dance Dance Revolution and the Human Hamster Wheel.

The one giant positive to being in a kid’s joint like this was that no one, and I mean no one, was expecting me to be in such a place. With a baseball cap pulled down over my forehead, I could have been any other dad chasing his kids around.

Vadim stood off to the side watching the proceedings, all while keeping a healthy distance away so as not to draw attention to me. Unfortunately that strategy backfired, as my security guy was targeted by a suspicious group of moms. I could see their point; he was definitely giving off a pervy vibe standing there in the corner by himself looking out over the crowd of kids.

The situation grew out of control faster than a brush fire fanned by the Santa Ana winds, and soon Vadim, an ex-Russian mercenary, was at the center of the firestorm. Moms with pitchforks closed ranks around him, demanding an explanation for his whole creeper-in-a-corner act. A pimply teenaged manager was called into action. He weighed all of a hundred and twenty pounds and shivered as he got his first look at Vadim in all his Terminator glory.

“S…S…Sir do you have a child here?”

Vadim didn’t answer. Nor did he even turn his head to acknowledge the guy.

The rail-thin little manager reached his arm toward Vadim, possibly to lead him out of the establishment, but if he laid even one finger on my bodyguard, I was certain he’d be in a deadly chokehold in a matter of seconds.

Sending Riley over to Lassen, I broke through the group and introduced myself. As I pulled my cap off, several people actually gasped.

“Guys, it’s okay. He’s my bodyguard. Sorry if he startled you. He was just trying to protect me.”

The manager’s mouth dropped open. He couldn’t have been older than nineteen. I wondered what life skills this kid possessed to have been made manager of a Chuck E. Cheese’s, or to potentially handle a situation with a real pervert in the place.

“I’d appreciate it if we could keep this quiet, so I can stay here a little longer with my niece and nephew.”

“Oh, yeah… Okay…uh…I… Sure, sorry.”

“We’re good, then?”

“Um…yes.” The man-child manager turned to the mommy gang and asked, “Are you all okay with this now?”

There was a collective head nod from the mob, and as they dissipated, I replaced my cap and grabbed Vadim’s arm, dragging him with me as I went back to the kids. Only I couldn’t find them. Or Lassen.

“Shit, where are they?” I immediately felt a tightness in my chest. I knew better than anyone how quickly things could turn wicked.

Vadim went into mercenary mode. His body taut with purpose, he scanned the play area like it was a battlefield.

“Jake!” Sydney waved, calling out to me as she glided down the slide coming from the Sky Tubes. One kid, thank god.

“Where’s Riley?” I asked, still trying to make sense of his disappearance.

“In the tubes, with Lassen.”

All tension dissolved as I processed the words she’d spoken.

Gaping at her in surprise, I asked, “Lassen’s in the tubes?”

“Uh-huh. I think he might be stuck, though,” Sydney said, as if a man the size of Lassen stuck in a suspended hamster house was no big deal.

“Wait, Syd, are you sure he’s stuck?”

“Well, he’s crying, so…”

“Lassen’s crying?” The shock of what I was hearing was causing my head to spin.

“Actually, it was more like moaning.” She proceeded to mimic the sound he was making.

“Oh, god, where are they?”

She pointed up to the highest tube. “You want me to show you?”

“Yeah, that might be a good idea.”

Mistake number five was inviting Lassen to come along. I realize that I already mentioned this mistake, but with the current situation we found ourselves in, I feel it’s worth repeating.

Sydney scaled the rope walls like Spiderman. My journey up wasn’t as effortless. I wasn’t that old, but damn, I felt like I was, as kids as young as four whizzed passed me at lightning speed. How in the hell had Lassen gotten up here? Although he’d lost quite a few pounds as a result of a health scare last year, he was still a big man.

It didn’t take long to figure out where Lassen was. There was a human traffic jam twelve kids long. Most of them were turning around and squeezing by me to use another tunnel by the entrance. I crawled toward Lassen who was lying on his stomach at a bend in the tubes. Riley was sitting behind him patting him on the back.

Sydney got to them first and impatiently demanded, “Move it, big man.”

“Back off!” Lassen’s growl echoed through the tubes.

“Dude, are you stuck?” I asked, finally reaching my friend.

“No. I’m claustrophobic.”

“He was crying,” Riley offered.

“I wasn’t crying, I was panicking. There’s a difference.”

The situation was too funny not to laugh. So I did. Hysterically. Sydney and Riley joined me.

“When you’re done, will you call the fire department, please?” Lassen panted. “They’re going to need the jaws of life to cut me out of here.”

“You don’t need rescuing. I’ll help you,” I said, before addressing my niece. “Syd, I want you to take Riley back through the entrance and then wait with Vadim until I come out.”

“Not a chance. I don’t want to miss a second of this.”

“Sydney,” I scolded through barely controlled laughter, “if you do what I say, and you hold Riley’s hand, and you stand next to Vadim until I get Lassen out, I will buy you a buttload of tickets so you can get any toy in the prize booth.”

Syd eyeballed me. “Any toy?”

“That’s right.”

“I want the giant pastel slinky.”

“Done.”

I was pleasantly surprised by how easily Syd caved. Damn, bribery was a legit parenting tactic. I didn’t care how much that giant slinky was going to cost me; my niece’s cooperation would be worth every penny.

“Okay, come on, Riley.”

“Hold his hand the whole time, Syd. That’s the deal.”

“I know. I know. See you on the other side, Rock Star.”

“How old are you again?” I laughed, and then turned my attention back to Lassen as the kids scooted back out and climbed down through the entrance. “Okay, I think our best bet is to have you move forward and not back.”

“I’m not going anywhere. Perhaps you didn’t hear me. I can’t fucking move,” he spat, under his breath. “And I don’t appreciate you laughing at me. This is all your fault in the first place.”

“Hey, I just brought you here. You’re the chump who decided to take a tour through the tubes.”

“For you, Jake.”

“Me?”

“You handed Riley off to me, and then the little shit took off into the tubes. I had no choice but to follow him in.”

Now I felt somewhat bad for him… nah, not really. His predicament was what America’s Funniest Home Videos was made for.

“Dude, I hate to say this in such crude terms, but you’re like a giant butt plug…nothing’s going in or out. Kids are piling up, and it’s only going to get worse. So what I need you to do is to take a deep breath and start squirming your way out.”

I felt a tug on my shirt.

“Excuse me, mister,” a little voice said. I looked back to find the most adorable little golden-haired girl, no more than four, trying to climb over me. Her pigtails bobbed as she again repeated. “Excuse me.”

“You’re not going to be able to get through,” I tried to explain to her. “It’s best to go the other way.”

“But I want to go down the slide,” she pouted.

Coming up behind her was her dad. “What’s the hold up? Is he all right?”

“He’s just a little claustrophobic,” I explained. “Give me a second, okay.”

“Is he dead, daddy?” the girl asked.

“No, he’s not dead. Hey, wait a minute, are you Jake McKallister?”

“Yeah, I am.”

I pushed on Lassen with all my might, but he simply tilted to the right and did not move.

“No way! I mean, no way! This is crazy. What are you doing at a Chuck E. Cheese’s? You don’t have kids, do you?”

“I’m here with my niece and nephew.”

“I can’t believe this. Can I take a picture with you?”

“Oh, my god,” I heard Lassen complain.

“I’m kind of busy right now,” I explained, even though the situation seemed fairly self-explanatory. “But after I get him out… sure.”

“Yeah, yeah, no problem. Can I help?”

Another child and adult came up behind the dad and his daughter.

“It’s Jake McKallister,” he filled in the newbies. They were sufficiently impressed. A camera flashed. And then another.

“Lassen, if you start inching forward, I’ll buy you a pastel slinky from the prize booth.”

“Shut up. I’m moving.”

And much to my surprise, he had wriggled his big body past the bend and was slowly but surely slithering his way through the tubes. I crawled after him. Behind me was an ever-growing pile-up of bodies. After making another turn, I could see the slide directly ahead.

“That’s it, buddy. Just follow the light.”

Lassen didn’t find me funny in the least. His panting was out of control, like a dog in some serious heat. Through the power of sheer will and terror, though, my driver mercifully arrived at the top of the slide; but instead of maneuvering his body around and taking the ramp on his ass, Lassen just inched his body forward and slid down head-first like a rag doll. When he got to the bottom, Lassen oozed his exhausted body off the slide and collapsed into a heap.

Sydney, still holding Riley’s hand, walked over and nudged him with her shoe. “You okay there, big man?”

I didn’t hear Lassen’s reply but, by the look of surprise on Syd’s face, he hadn’t used a PG-13 word.

After rescuing Lassen from his living hell, we allowed him to lick his wounds in a far corner, while the kids and I continued to play. True to my word, I began buying the place out of tickets so I could win my niece her coveted giant pastel slinky. Syd’s bargain prize was understandably impressive. I should have known it wouldn’t be your average everyday slinky. No, this one was the size of a large possum, and somehow we were going to have to make room for it in the confines of the tour bus. Riley went for a less remarkable yet still highly satisfying Nerf gun. They were happy.

Less happy was Vadim, who’d been forced to call in back-up when my presence at Chuck E. Cheese began making the rounds on social media. Crowds surged through the front doors as Vadim shuttled us into a private party room. While waiting for rescue, the kids and I used the left over Frozen party supplies to decorate Vadim. At six foot five and a solid wall of human steel, the man didn’t flinch once; but then after the incident with Riley in the plane, he really didn’t have room for dissent.

Once safely in the car on our way back to the venue, I struggled to keep my weary eyes open. Never had I needed a nap more than today. Casey was right. I should’ve started off small. From this day forward, it was T-ball all the way for me.