I know.  Its been a while.  I keep planning on writing but most days I am just so exhausted that watching TV is difficult. I am sort of on vacation.  Mamma is in Italy for a friend’s wedding, and I’m at home with the kids.

Last Saturday we went to a farmer’s market where we had tickets for a pony ride. That was a flee market. Actually, we had vouchers so that we could get tickets for a pony ride. I went to hand the lady at the near the ponies the tickets that I had printed from Living Social and she let me know that I had to go to the information tent to redeem my tickets and that the piece paper I had was just a voucher. When we arrived at the line for the information tent, it became quickly apparent that this wasn’t well planned. He bought tickets for a spectacular line.  We were in line for an hour and half. I didn’t bring the stroller because I didn’t think we would be standing around that long. If you have ever stood in line for more than ten minutes with a two year old trying to escape and a seven year old asking questions about why we have to stay in line, you can imagine the suffering.

We finally got our tickets and I could see that the hour and half line had now grown to well over three hours and was slightly thankful that we were done with that.  We took our tickets back to the pony ride and stood in line for another half hour. The kids loved the ponies for the entire three minutes.

The ponies were kept in area away from the rest of the market so after the rides we started walking back towards the market from the ponies, we passed a bounce house.  We stopped so that Tata could jump around a bit. Anyone else thinking about House of Pain.  Turns out we needed tickets.  I asked the guy if the tickets were purchased at the information tent and when he said yes, I gave Tata a choice: wait in line again or go to McDonald’s.  She didn’t even take a second to think. Duh. McDonald’s was our next destination.

Dent in car fender

The nearest McDonald’s was in a small shopping center with one entrance from the main road.  The entrance was a long, two way street that lead to a parking lot, but just inside that entrance was an Exxon gas station.  Apparently, without a stop sign, some people do not realize they have to stop. Someone exiting the Exxon ran right into us as we were coming down the road. Then, he drove away quickly. I did what any intelligent father with two small children in the car would do; I chased after him while honking my horn until he stopped. Logical? At which point he proceeded to tell me that he had the right of way and that he was just looking for a parking space and that he couldn’t stop in the middle of the road.  My brain was overloading. He had the right of way? I have never ever seen a gas station where the person exiting has the right of way. He was looking for a parking space? We were five feet from a parking lot. Couldn’t stop in the middle of the road? He speed up.  But I couldn’t articulate any of that. In fact, my brain and tongue seemed to be disconnected all of a sudden.  And then it hit me. My blood sugar was going to be low, right now. Right now, while I have this man yelling at me because he was the first man in history to leave an Exxon with the right of way. Right now, while I was trying to find the police department phone number of my BlackBerry. Right now, with Squishy in the back of the minivan going, “Wha happent Papa?”

One of the ways that diabetes can be helpful is, apparently, it completely readjusts people’s negative attitudes towards you when they think you are going to die. Suddenly, this guy was now my best friend and was asking what he could do to help. Then he noticed the kids in the back and started apologizing, asking if they were okay. My head was still spinning as I was chewing on my favorite correction medicine, SweetTarts. I called USAA and started filing the claim as I waited for my blood sugar to return back to normal.