Small Talk

Before I begin this hilarious story, I need to mention an amusing habit that Adam has developed. He's very much like me and Tommy in that he's not a great conversationalist--he's a bit shy. But he tries. He makes a very valiant effort whenever anyone talks to him, and he clings to an ice-breaking tactic that makes me and Tommy have a hard time keeping straight faces. No matter what a person says to him to get him to talk, Adam always sticks his foot out and says, "See? I have shoes." I guess he figures that's something the two of them have in common, and thus far they're on equal ground. It always brings a smile to the other person's face :).

So this morning, I needed to run a couple of errands. We got a late start since Hannah has been sick and was taking an unusually long nap. We pulled out of the garage to find that it was raining a lot harder than I thought. I decided to just do one errand so I wouldn't have to take the kids in and out of the car too much. By the time we left the store, it was lunch time so I decided to stop by Wendy's on the way home. I don't know their menu very well (we go to Chick-Fil-A when we get fast food), so I tried to pull up to the speaker thing just to the point where I could see the menu but not cross over the buzzer that lets them know someone's there. Well, I pulled a little too far up and got an earful of, "Hi, may I take your order?" I told the guy I needed just a second, but then Adam piped up. "Uh, yeah, uh, hi," Adam started yelling from the back seat. "Uh, I have shoes!" I tried to shush him while I searched everywhere for the kids menu, but he just plowed on. "Uh, I like some apples and fries and juice and--" but I interrupted him to quickly make our order. It was hard to talk over him, concentrate on what I was saying, and keep from laughing all at the same time. I pulled away from the speaker and up to the first window to pay. "That'll be--" the guy started to say, but Adam interjected with, "Hi, Mr. Guy, this is Hannah." We got to the second window, and while they were handing me our food, Adam called out, "Mr. Guy, I have this booger here--" at which point I practically peeled out of the drive-thru lane, barely grabbing his kids' meal and almost exploding with suppressed laughter. I laughed all the way home, so he definitely didn't get a lecture on proper conversation etiquette. Perhaps I'm a bad mother and teacher for that--but at least he keeps things interesting :)...