Flip It! Fold It! Fun!

One evening a couple of weeks ago Ryan and I had a guys night out. Since he's only seven, we can't get in too much trouble unless one of us ends up in the emergency room. But that doesn't deter us from having quite a bit of fun anyway.

The evening's festivities started with my wife and I sitting and staring at each other. Because of a lack of food in the house, she had decided that she and my daughter would also hit the road for dinner. Since the girls really aren't supposed to be part of a guys night, they decided to go get different fast food.

Anyway, we managed to get past the weirdness of the whole thing and the boys and girls went their separate ways in different cars. Of course, it got weirder (you knew that would happen, didn't you?) when Ryan and I finally figured out what we wanted to eat. You see, we each have the same opinion of the other's fast food choice, so we had to go through two drive-thru windows.

At this point, if you're scoring at home, I'll recap:

Number of people: FOUR

Number of licensed drivers: TWO

Number of cars used: TWO

Number of restaurants visited: THREE

This will get a bit stranger before it gets more normal...

Okay, steakhouse burger for dad and six-piece nuggets for son. Sprite for everybody. Fries for dad, none for son (he doesn't like them. I told you it would get stranger).

I have a problem with eating one restaurant's food inside another restaurant, even if I bought food at the second restauarant. So, we drove to the park and Ryan moved to the front seat. Crank the Christian rock station and have at the grub. Afterward, we played for a bit and then headed to the next place, which was...

wait for it...

ANOTHER RESTAURANT!!!

Actually, it was a coffee house: The Music Cafe in Damascus, MD--if you're in the area, stop by. They'd be happy for the business. Hot cocoa (with contraband marshmallows) for Ryan and un espresso doppio for Dad. We would have stayed for the live music but I didn't want to pay the cover charge.

But we did have some fun. Ryan brought his flip-n-folds with him. If you haven't seen these, they're little cards that you can fold around and over various ways to see different pictures. Ryan and I figured out how to make one and in typical Ryan fashion, within three days he had made at least 145,000 of them. I can't complain, though, because I got the greatest homemade flip-n-fold Father's Day card from him later. It's at my desk at work and I love folding it around and around. It has a limerick in my honor, which I will post at some point.

Ryan's flip-n-folds were now the basis of a card game. Inspired by Pokemon and Sonic the Hedgehog, Ryan had created a game with enough rules and exceptions to said rules to put the US Tax Code to shame. He then started teaching it to anybody who didn't duck quickly enough.

I think I won, but three weeks later, I'm still not sure. I think we'd be better off sticking with Cribbage. But of course, Ryan has his own special rules for that game too...