Great Saves

Our neighborhood funds a concert series in the park for 3 Wednesdays every summer, so we pack up the family and go.

Kids run around everywhere blissed out of their little gourds. Mom and dad are nearby on a blanket while they play with hundreds of other kids, music pumping in the background. Cops stand around stone faced, mostly making people who haven't sufficiently disguised their alcohol dump it out.

Somehow the baby got ahold of a ball and decided that bouncing it off our neighbor's margarita was a grand idea.

All of his party training kicked in and within microseconds of the cup landing on its side, he'd grabbed it and scooped the drink off the blanket back into the cup, leaving only a pool of humidity behind. It was a grand save. I doubt they even had to wash the blanket.

The only save more worthy of glory that I have witnessed was during a wedding party. Tradition had it that the men of the wedding party "steal" the bride and take her out for an hour or two, plying her with drinks and entertainment. The groom gets the same treatment from the women.

We took our charge to every nasty bait shop we could find as machine gambling had just been legalized statewide.

So, there she was, in her bright white wedding dress perched on a stool next to the minnow tank, beer in one hand, the other playing the buttons. The stool squirted from beneath her, leaving only air between her and the cement floor, stickily stained with leakage from the minnow tank.

Her party training kicked in too. She landed flat on her ass with nary a drop spilled, dress be damned. It was a lovely thing.

We ponied up another $20 for her to gamble with.

(And for those who care, the dress remained pristine.)