Sled Thief

After the first big snowfall of the season, the boys and I decided to visit Mount Trashmore for some good old fashioned sledding. Imagine my surprise when one billion other Evanston families had the exact same idea. This didn’t bother me because it enhanced my favorite snow pastime: watching little kids get t-boned by sleds.

A Twentysomething girl brought her dog to the hill and attempted to get it to ride a sled. Steve and I started an all-hill chant of “Sled dog!” We also wrote and performed an 80’s teen movie called “Sled Dog.” The only way to save the ski resort from bankruptcy was to beat the rich kids in the big race and Sled Dog was just the animal to do it. The Twentysomething girl left because we embarrassed her.

Around the time we wrote our follow up to “Sled Dog” called “Sled Old Lady,” Eli noticed our extra blue sled was missing. I had chucked it into a bush since no one was using it, but now it was gone. There were hundreds of identical sleds on the hill, so I said, “It’s gone forever.”

But Eli and Luca did some detective work and determined a tiny little cute girl had stolen it. She did look shifty in her pink hat and gloves and joyous face. The rotten blue sled suddenly became Luca’s favorite possession and he begged me to confront her father.

This did not seem like a very Rick thing to do. Because I am a wimp. But I also didn’t want to look like a wimp in front of my sons, so I told Elijah he should go ask them if they were borrowing our sled. Eli balked. He was the son of a wimp, after all. I explained that he had a far less chance of getting punched since he was a kid and nice and cute. I gave him the script “Hi I’m Eli. We are missing a blue sled just like this. Have you seen it?” I even have him the extra motivation of shoving his sled towards the family.

Amazingly, Eli talked to the dad who admitted to borrowing (stealing) the sled. The dad gave the sled back and even gave Eli $2 as a rental fee. I was proud of him and even let him keep the $2.

When we got home I realized we had forgotten to put the sleds in the car.

Actually, I found the sleds later but I want to keep this ending as is. It’s far more HamannEggs to lose the sleds. It’s now Family Cannon.