Rerouting

I take the same route to work and back home for lunch every day. (Except in the winter, when it’s so icy I’m worried I’ll slide right down Thomas Hill and into the Des Moines.) On Thomas Hill there lives a little boy. He’s maybe five or six. The first time I met him, he was playing “race the toy trike down the hill like a wild man” with another shady looking kid. He asked me my name, and that conversation degraded into him calling me doody head. Needless to say, we're not friends.
Last week, he was out front playing in his makeshift pool. He asked me if I wanted to swim with him. Umm, no. That’s weird. I told him I had to go home and make cookies. “Sorry!”
He didn’t take it so well. Later that same week he was back in the pool on my way home for lunch, and this time he tried to spray me with a garden hose. I felt a little mist on the back of my legs, and then he yelled, “Hey! Are you wet?”
“No,” I shouted as I kept walking toward home.
“Oh,” he said, sort of disappointed. “I missed.”
Yeah. You missed kid. And you’re lucky you did. Honestly, I’m wearing business slacks and a blouse and you think it would be a bright idea to spray me with a garden hose?
Even though he has crappy aim, on my way back I took a detour on the tree streets (right at Maple, left at Oak). Now every time I approach his house, I close my eyes and say a little prayer he isn’t there. So far, it’s working, but I can't avoid him forever. I just hope he's not playing with fireworks next time.
---
You’ll never guess what I got Dad for Father’s Day. Doughnuts. He doesn’t especially love doughnuts, but these were special because I picked them out of the trash at the grocery store. My husband and I stopped to get a watermelon, and we were driving around the back of the supermarket when I spied a dumpster full of bakery items, with a plastic case of doughnuts on top.
“Should we get them?” my husband joked. I laughed. Then I got that look in my eyes and said, “We should totally get them for Neal for Father’s Day!”
Dumpster diving is a family thing. My grandpa Gerald used to take us when he was babysitting. I never remember getting so much as a stomach ache at his house, and we thought it was kind of fun. Dad always said growing up they didn’t get Halloween candy until well after the holiday when the stores got rid of it. And look how he turned out!
I felt a little silly climbing out of the car to grab food out of the trash, but I was grinning like crazy. My family had a good laugh remembering Grandpa DeMars,  and by the time we left Dad’s party, all the doughnuts were gone.