Last night had a nice ending to kind of a crummy day. For one thing, I wasn’t feeling well physically most of the day, and I was under a considerable amount of stress from a situation I was dealing with. I thought my night was just gonna involve my kids being out with friends and me trying to go to bed early to recoup. I was only partly right.

My son Josh did head out to go help a friend in need because apparently no one else was available to help this guy. That’s my son for you, bless his heart! I understand things did turn out okay in that situation. But my daughter Lauren was home and not planning to go anywhere. Late into the evening, or actually early nighttime, she came to ask me if we could go rent a movie from Redbox. There’s a kiosk at the Walgreen’s nearby, so I figured the whole round trip would take about 10 minutes or so. As I finished drinking the hot tea I had made, my daughter played around on the piano a little bit. I listened with pleasure for a few minutes while she played. She stopped her piano lessons not long ago because she felt her schedule was getting too busy, so I am thrilled any time she decides to practice on her own. I was in the kitchen, and I could see her in the next room opening up the piano bench to flip through some sheet music. I stepped in briefly just to say she could let me know whenever she was ready to go, no rush. I also said if she’d rather dink around on the piano for a little while, that would be fine, too. She finished up what she was playing, and we left to go rent a movie. Did I say I thought it would take 10 minutes? Hahahahaha! Yeah, right.

We went to the Walgreen’s kiosk. It had a movie she wanted to see but then didn’t have another one she thought of. So, I suggested we go to the next kiosk at the McDonald’s down the road. When we got there, it was out of stock for both of the movies. Not to disappoint my little girl, who was ready just to head back home, I said we could go a little further to the Walmart kiosk. We had to wait a few minutes for a mother and teenage son to finish making their selection, only to find out that this one was also out of stock for the movies we were looking for. At that point, we could have turned back. But I knew there was another kiosk at Dillon’s, which was the next stop in the circuit around town. I had also tried to use my phone to get on the Redbox website just to see if it could locate a kiosk where the movies would be found. It was suggesting the Dillon’s but also Kwik Shop. I didn’t know there was a kiosk at Kwik Shop, and there were actually two Kwik Shops we could choose from. At first Lauren and I were only thinking of the Kwik Shop that was across the street from Dillon’s, but the website said it had no current selections available. I started to head to Dillon’s but then realized we were much closer to the other Kwik Shop anyway. Lauren was ready to go home. She felt bad that we were “wasting gas” and driving all over the place. To me it just meant more time I could spend with my daughter, and it was getting kind of funny. I asked her to hang on for just a little bit longer, and we went to Kwik Shop.

There was a lady using the Redbox when we drove up, and I had already been thinking that maybe while we were there we could go inside and get a drink, another reason I thought Lauren wouldn’t mind going to Kwik Shop. She must have had the same idea and before I could say anything was already asking if we could get a drink. We don’t often get soft drinks or eat candy just to stay healthy, so these occasions are like special treats. Lauren was wanting root beer, Barq’s in particular, but they didn’t have it. Instead we each got a cream soda and some Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. Somehow a Reese’s Big Cup King Size ended up in my hand instead of the regular little one. I’m still just at a total loss as to how such “mistake” like that could have happened (ahem, lol). Actually I had been checking out the Milky Way bars, but Lauren made a comment that she was surprised I hadn’t chosen “one of those,” pointing to the Big Cups, then she handed me not just a Big Cup but a King Size (two-pack). See, she and I kind of have this running joke about the Big Cups after I kept trying to sneak them in the basket while shopping with her one time at Walmart. She was teasing me about getting fat, so I grabbed a Big Cup (the biggest thing I could find) and put it in the basket in defiance. She kept taking it out and putting it back on the shelf, only to find I’d stuck one back in the basket again. She finally pushed me down the aisle after putting the last one back on the shelf, but was absolutely shocked when she got home and found some in the shopping bag after all. She hadn’t even seen me sneak them through the checkout counter. I’ve done that to her with some DVDs before. Anyway, ever since then we’ve had this running joke. When paying out, we met a nice Kwik Shop cashier who was in a crazy mood and acting out scenes from the Austin Powers movies. He was kinda funny. He didn’t even know why those movies were on his mind, but he told us how he didn’t even like those movies at first but later on came to really like them. Then we went outside to the Redbox.

While Lauren was looking up the movies, a car drove up with two young girls in it, and they needed to know how to get to a place in northwest Wichita, and we were southeast of Wichita in Derby. These poor girls didn’t even know where they were. I quickly gave them directions, and off they went. As I turned back around, Lauren’s face told me that this Redbox didn’t have the movies either. So, I started to head to Dillon’s for one last chance. Lauren didn’t want to go there. She just wanted to go home. She was getting frustrated. I tried to encourage her a little and really found the whole thing quite humorous. I said I needed to get something at Dillon’s anyway. She complained and said to just go home. I said we needed milk, which we did, and she stopped cold, thought about it, and had to agree. So, to Dillon’s we went. I checked the Redbox while Lauren waited in the truck this time. She refused to get out again. But you guessed it, again no luck on the movies. I went in and snagged my milk (paying for it, of course), then I headed back toward home. I decided to go back by Walgreen’s on the way just to get the one movie that was there at least, somewhat to Lauren’s consternation, but finally to her approval as I joked that I would get the movie, and then she could tell me how it was after I slept through it. That’s kind of another running gag since I’ve been known to fall asleep during movies (yes, I need to get more sleep at night). We also laughed as we both agreed that it would be upsetting if we got home after all this and found out that we didn’t even like the movie after all. But we finally got home, watched the flick, and decided it was okay. And I didn’t even fall asleep, to which Lauren commented her surprise a couple of times throughout (“Wow, Dad, I’m surprised you’re still awake, ha ha ha.”). We got to have some fun just running around a little. Lauren kept saying she felt bad about using up gas and stuff, but to me it’s worth the time and effort even if the road just leads back to where you started from, as long as you’re with someone you love. šŸ™‚

Oh, and what were the movies? Doesn’t matter, heh heh. Go out and make your own adventure! šŸ˜›