My youngest son went to preschool for his first day yesterday.

Jenny said that they split the day up into 15 minute activities, so I think he covered a lot of ground in the 3 hours he was there.

From what I understand, he had a great time at school.

After Jenny picked him up, they went shopping for some groceries.

Apparently, they have the pharmacy area right next to the self-check line.

Apparently, at the pharmacy they have a rack of reading glasses that spins.

Whether it spins fast or slow is up to the operator.

It’s possible for the rack to spin very fast.

I’m not sure if Nate was acting out a little after getting “left behind” for the first time or what was going on…but he found that if he spinned the eyeglass rack very fast, the glasses would all fall victim to centrifugal force and exit the rack at terminal velocity.

There were glasses everywhere.

It was kind of like a non-threatening gatling gun…the only pain it really caused was the pain in the a** Jenny must have felt Nate was being.

She’d describe the situation more tactfully…something like, “Nate was a real handful after preschool today.”  That’s nicer than “pain in the a**”.

Anyway, there she was, trying to finish checking out with her groceries, and the entire area around her is littered with cheap reading glasses, like manna from heaven for all the myopic old people surrounding her.

She said that she’d never seen more old people needing to try on reading glasses at that exact moment.

(I’ve seen them flock like crows around a thrown handful of corn…it must have been quite the scene.)

One old biddy…um, one older woman of advanced age and maturity who probably commanded respect because of her advanced age and maturity….nah….one old biddy…told her, “YOU NEED TO PICK THOSE UP!  HE’S GOING TO STEP ON THEM!”

Jenny looked at her and told her that she’d get them when she finished checking out.

( I imagine her using her best Clint Eastwood voice when she did it…like the “you feeling lucky, punk?  Well…are you?” voice.  That would have been cool…”I’ll pick them up when I’m ready, old punk…”.  Actually, she doesn’t have a Clint voice…but it would have been neat to shut down the old biddy like that.)

Things get more exciting than they should sometimes.

But what power does Nate have other than spinning racks of eyeglasses and yelling at the top of his lungs?

Probably not much power other than that.

I guess that’s what they call “paying your dues”.

You just have weird experiences that you have to work your way through.

That goes for the parents, too.

Children cure you of shyness.  It’s a self-preservation, knee-jerk kind of thing…you just react in the animal logic moment, scrambling to do some damage control while your world goes spinning out of whack around you…glasses flying everywhere and the geriatric audience looking on disapprovingly.

It’s horrible…but you don’t have time to be too self-conscious.

I guess you just have to enjoy the times in-between the spinning.

You have to enjoy the “even keel”… if it ever comes.