[Author’s Note: This story is told from the perspective of my husband, Taylor. Accordingly, I have done my best to communicate a cohesive narrative while also staying true to his storytelling voice.]
The other day, I took Bo to the park so that Holly could stay home and clean. I thought we’d mix it up, so we walked down to the playground by the Mines Park family housing. Bo was pretty excited about all the unfamiliar equipment, so he started scoping it out immediately.
Anyway, so we’ve been at the deserted park for about five minutes when I hear this twig snap. It’s like straight out of a horror movie. I look around, and I see some kid’s legs sticking out from behind this rocking dinosaur thing. As I watch, the kid sticks his head out from the other side of the dinosaur. We make awkward eye contact, and the kid kinda smiles at me, and then slowly disappears behind the dinosaur again.
He stays “undercover” and keeps sneaking peeks from behind the dinosaur. I point him out to Bo, who’s busy playing with this sand-digging toy thing, and Bo also felt pretty uncomfortable about being watched. So for several minutes, the kid keeps looking at us, and we keep looking back at him, and basically none of us move.
After like five minutes, the kid’s dad walks down the path to the playground, and it kinda snaps the kid out of his spy-mode. He went to play on the slides, and Bo kept playing on the digger, and the other dad and I chatted about Mines and work and kids. I find out the kid is about two-and-a-half years old and loves animals.
Then, after a few minutes of this, I look up and see that the other kid has gone full-on dog. Like, totally in character. He’s on hands and knees, and his tongue is out, and he’s, like, panting.
Bo’s playing with the digger toy, so he doesn’t notice the kid’s role-play at first. But then the other kid starts crawling toward Bo — still panting, and on hands and knees. Bo looks up and notices the dog-kid, and you can just tell that he has no idea what to make of it.
So the other dad and I watch the dog-kid crawl ten feet to Bo, which takes upwards of a minute. Bo keeps looking up and getting more and more uncomfortable, and honestly, the other dad and I are pretty uncomfortable too. We’re just kind of awkwardly chuckling at each other. The only person who’s ok with the situation is the dog-kid.
Anyway, the other kid eventually reaches Bo, and when he gets there, he puts his front “paws” on Bo’s shoulders and just stands there, panting in Bo’s face.
And Bo was stone. Cold.
It was really incredible to watch. Bo stared through the dog-kid as though he didn’t exist. He was basically like, “I know you’re a kid. Stop pretending to be a dog.” Bo just utterly refused to engage with the kid while he was acting like a dog, which makes me think that he won’t really be a let’s-play-pretend kid in the future.
Anyway, so the stare-off goes on for like a minute. Actually, it was probably more like thirty seconds, but it felt like forever. The other dad and I have no idea what to say, so we’re just silent as our sons do this battle of wills.
And eventually, my son wins. The dog-kid finally realizes that he’s not going to get Bo to treat him like a dog, so he breaks eye contact, walks away, and goes back to playing on the playground like a human again. Bo goes back to playing with the digger toy like nothing happened.
The other dad looks at me awkwardly and is like, “Kids, right?” Because basically there was nothing else to say at that point.
We stayed at the park for a little while longer, but it was just pretty weird after the whole dog incident. Bo was ready to go when I asked him, so we walked back up to the house.
Holly was sweeping when we got home, so I said, “Wow babe, the house looks great!”
She laughed a little and answered, “For sure. You can almost tell that I’ve cleaned. How was the park?”
I didn’t really know where to start about our weird trip to the park — but I knew that Holly expected an answer. So, I looked at her, and… I grunted.
[Author’s Note: Obviously, Taylor eventually found the words to describe this park outing to me — and once he did, I couldn’t wait to share the story. Initially, I figured I would simply relay the incident to my mother over the phone — but then, I realized that other people might also find the tale humorous. And if the mix of past- and present-tense throws you off… then I’m sorry. It’s genuinely how my husband speaks.]