Hot Chocolate

Nick and Nate both take karate classes now.

However, because the universe is cruel, or perhaps because it's more fair for little boys, they are not in the same class. Nathan is one of the larger boys in a very small class of five and six year-olds. Nick is easily the smallest boy in a much larger class of rambunctious seven to twelve year-olds.

Both boys have class three times a week. But not at the same time. The one saving grace is that twice a week these classes occur back-to-back.

This means that I must wait during both classes with one or two boys. The Dojo is small, and there is no place I can sit with other children, so I usually take this time to run a few short errands. But as the town is spread out, there are really only a few places, and a limited number of errands I can do. I can run to the very expensive grocery store I hate and pick up a few items. I can mail a package. I can go to the organic food store and pick up my CSA stuff. I can go to the dry cleaners. I can buy a pie.

Usually I sit at the coffee shop and have a cup of coffee.

This has become an expensive habit. I never used to buy coffee - I can make it at home. But I feel odd sitting in a store and not purchasing anything, so I buy a decaf. Then I leave to pick up Nate and drop Nick off, and then we sit down again, and I have another decaf.

I have set up a pre-paid account so that I don't even have any idea how much I'm spending.

When I'm there, I sometimes feel bad when the boys are with me. Other kids order drinks, and my kids started requesting drinks also.

And so I gave in and started ordering them Hot Chocolates.

This was a bad idea.

Do you know what kids wear to karate? Gis. A Gi is, well, a karate outfit. There are tons of them out there, but most of them are WHITE.

You know what can really mess up a white outfit? That's right. Hot Chocolate.

One Saturday, the coffee shop was having a particular problem with it's drink lids. They kept falling off. And both Nick and Nate managed to spill hot chocolate on the front of their gi's.

It took me a few weeks to get around to washing them. I mean, I don't usually wash them, because they are white, and I don't want to accidentally turn them pink. And I don't often do whites. And when I do I often forget about looking in the karate bags. But eventually I did, and although you can still find the spot they spilled if you look, you have to really look.

Four days later we were at the coffee shop. I was chatting with other parents and Nick and Andy were sitting in a gaggle of boys, heads bent over DS machines in some male-bonding activity. I gave the two-minute warning - we're leaving in two minutes. Nick them remembered that he had hot chocolate, which he had hardly touched. And, rushing, he managed to pour in all over the front of his gi. All. Over. The front of his gi. It was a mess.

It was such a mess, that the other boys just stood and looked at him with shock.

One of the parents fetched me napkins, and I blotted as well as I could. I told Nick he could swap go tops with Nate once we were back in the dojo, and we all started packing up.

Except Nick, who then said "but I want to have a few more sips of my hot chocolate."

He took a few very tentative sips while I stood very still and chose not to yell. Then I said, "OK, we're leaving now," and I turned to the door and started walking out.

Nick then remembered that he had to pack up his DS and all his games, which took him another couple of minutes. Then, just as I stepped out the door, he took him almost-full hot chocolate and placed it in the trash.

Because I like spending too much money on hot chocolates simply to increase my laundry load.