Stories for the Ages

All families have stories that are repeated at family gatherings that cause everyone to break into a fit of laughter.  In our house it would be the man that hit our car when we were on vacation as we were all eating cereal.  Did I tell you that the entire lot was empty except for our car and the lot covered several acres?  With Dave's family it would be when he was in first grade and walked home from school by himself, across two of the busiest streets in Cleveland,  because he did not want to stay after school with the other kids in his class who were being punished for being too loud.  His dad had always told him that if he got into trouble at school he would get into double when he got home.  He caused that teacher to retire early. 

A few weeks ago we added a story to the group.  All of us had traveled to my sister's house for my niece's First Communion.  Saturday was the Kentucky Derby and my dad decided to give all the kids a number of a horse by pulling them out of a hat.  They each got one number except for Colin who got the slip that had the 12 horses least likely to win.  He tried to trade once he found out why his slip was different, but we do not raise suckers in our family so nobody would take the deal.

My nephew, Andrew, had drawn Mucho Macho Man and was strutting around like a preening peacock at having a favored horse with a name to match his personal attitude.  This would be the attitude that can only be held by an almost 14 year old boy that has the world by the tail and life is good.  He was giving everyone the business because there was no way that the rest of the horses could hold a candle to his superior steed. I should point out that Andrew calls me after every post to tell me that my work does not have enough excitement to hold his attention.  He was my first follower and has me on his Ipod Touch.  I am sure he is the only 14 year old boy that does. 

The race got under way and Elaine's horse, Shackleford, took the early lead and held on to it for quite a while.  The room was crazy with everyone cheering and it was impossible to hear the television.  Colin was just trying to figure out what horses were his and only knew them by number.  When we turned the volume up as far as it would go, the only name we kept hearing was Mucho Macho Man.  Not being seasoned horse racing watchers we thought he had won for a few seconds before we found out that Animal Kingdom had won.  Andrew started to jump up and down and run around the room in a way that was reminiscent of Brandi Chastain's reaction when the American Women won the 1999 World Cup championship, minus the ripping off of his shirt.  I was sure he was going to get his hand taken off by the ceiling fan. 

After we found out that Animal Kingdom was the true winner of the race, we were trying to figure out who had that horse.   Colin looked at his sheet and compared it several times to the number of the horse and found out that he was, indeed, the winner.  You can understand the confusion because this was the sheet with his numbers: 

Andrew was really cool about losing and us kidding him mercilessly for the rest of the day. While he can dish it out with the best of them, he can take it like a man.  I was so thrilled for Colin because the winner took all for the prize which was $20.00.    The winnings never made it home as we had to stop at Barnes & Noble to get the new Rick Riordan book for the ride home.  With that being said, Dave and I were the true winners because it was mercifully quite for the ride home.  As he was reading, Ryan was passed out cold for almost two hours.  By all accounts, It was a very good weekend