Anudda Gwate Day

Here's what The Great Plotnik was thinking about this morning when he was half-carrying, half-containing Isabella (yelling "Daddy! Daddy! I want my Daddy! I love my Daddy! Daddy!"), as Daddy disappeared in the distance towards the subway, leaving Plot and Belly to move not-very-quickly down DeKalb Avenue on the way to school:

It was the day Ronald Reagan was shot, which makes it March 30, 1981. The Great PunkyDunky was a little older than Isabella is now, and he, his mommy and daddy were on a ski weekend in Squaw Valley.

That is, Plot and Duck wanted to ski, so they needed to place little PD in Squaw Valley's day-care center. It was a little like taking your dog to the vet. All morning long, as everyone put on their ski clothes, PD was happy and singing to himself, happy as a rock in a snowball, until the second they stopped the car outside the Nazi Day Care Center.

Plotnik didn't raise no fool. PD has always been able to put 2 plus 2 together in an instant. He saw the day care center, saw the kids, realized his parents were about to ski away in a different direction and let out a HOWL. No, not a howl. A screeching heart rending child being tortured shriek. He started fighting the air. Nobody could get close enough to him to pick him up, so Plotnik dragged his belovedly screeching lunatic, with his snow boots dragging in the snow, because he refused to move his feet, leaving two thick lines in the snow from the back seat of the car all the way into the into the Nazi Day Care Center, up to the front door where they were met by Mr. Goebbels.

Mr. Goebbels was like December in the Aryan Fire Department Calendar. He was around six foot six, blonde, ripped (Plottie could tell) with a checked ski sweater and stretch pants. He had seen this before. He said something like "Zo, zat is fine, ve vill take gut care ov your leetle heh heh heh monster. You go. Go now, pleeze."

The last words they heard were "MOMMMY! DADDDDDDDDyyyyyyyy........."

All day long Plot felt like shit. He was convinced he had traumatized his child forever, leaving him with Nazis who would torture him and turn him into a Lutheran. Ducknik felt every bit as bad, without the religious overtone.

So they skied, but they sort of didn't ski either, worrying about their little boy, pausing each time at the head of the chair lift to listen for his tormented screams. At the close of the ski day, they took off their skis in a hurry and ran down to the Nazi Day Care Center to pick up the remnants of their child.

An ebullient Great PD came running up to them, happy and smiling and excited to relate to them all the wonderful things he had done that day at the Nazi Day Care Center. What were his first words to his parents?

"Anudda Gwate Day!"

He has never been allowed to forget his monumental temper tantrum followed by "Anudda Gwate Day!" And that's what Plotnik was thinking about this morning as Isabella howled and tugged and fussed and lamented in Plottie's arms -- until she saw her friend Beya out in front of the school, to whom she immediately raced, hugged, and holding her hand, bounded happily up the stairs and into school.

Papa to The Great PunkyDunky: this is all your fault.