I met the deadline. Overtime is over. I'm taking four days off.

I owe the time off to my family. I owe it to my collection. And I owe it to my writing. So at the beginning of my four days off, I enclose myself in my comic sanctuary, turn on my computer, bring up Microsoft Word, and begin to type.

My butt hurts. My back hurts. And my mouse hand is curled into a tight claw. But I feel like my mind and body are finally free. I feel creative. I feel like a changed man. Story ideas have been crowding my mind vying for time with my fingers and keyboard. Ashton, Green Arrow, and my brand new zip drive are some of the topics that have been at war with my defect-fixing project time. It's nice to let them loose. It's as if I'm letting myself loose. As if the core of 'Chuck' has been submerged in a quagmire of work lately. Comics, kids, and badly mixed metaphors have been strongly calling out to me.

Two days later Lorie knocks on my door and gently reminds me that this is not 'time with my family'. And if I don't come out soon, I'll end up looking like some kind of comic book nerd. Imagine that! She suggests a walk. My portly tum-tum and un-stretched legs eagerly agree.

Due to recent illnesses, we've been fearing a relapse of flu season something fierce. And our tactics to prevent a chill from caressing the kid's cheeks have been drastic to say the least. I walked into the kitchen to find my baby daughter. The Chunka Baby Chunk herself. Tightly swaddled in a fluffy, head-to-toe outfit that would make Eskimos shake their head in wonder of the excess. Only Katie's face was visible. The fluffy white hood wrapped tightly from chin to the crest of her head. Little mittens sewn to the ends of her sleeves preventing her drool soaked fingers from being either chilly or comfortable. Katie was the stereotype of not being able to move her legs or arms. She looked up at me, and her eyes cried: "Free me, Daddy. Free me."

Dr. Fu was not similarly encumbered. He wore a light vest of windbreaker material. He had picked a Superman action figure to carry with him on the walk. He clutched at the doorknob to the front door and pitched his voice into whiny tones.

"Outside. Da Da, outside!" He whined and tugged.

"Where are Daddy's hugs?" I asked.

He put a finger to his chin and rolled his eyes to the ceiling. "Hmmm... I don't know." He said. He's been answering a lot like that lately. It's just about the cutest thing ever. We think he picked it up from television. The first time he did it, Lorie had to put Katie down because she was laughing so hard. We have it on videotape, so stop by if you want to see it.

Ashton's need to go outside had been festering all day. With me working in the Comic Sanctuary and Mommy busy with other stuff, he was feeling alone and neglected. He even took the drastic step of pouring Mommy's coffee all over her leg. An attention-getting ploy, no doubt, but the attention it got him was time-out standing alone in the corner. He cried, we understood and decided to meet his needs. An hour later he sat quietly on the couch next to me in the Comic Sanctuary. I typed and wrote and worked. He sat and looked and looked and drooled. "Da Da's toys." He whispered. It was the time he needed.

But he still wanted to go outside. So eventually we went outside.

Once outside it was almost immediately apparent, to me at least, that Katie's thick wrapping was not only unnecessary but also inhumane. It felt sixty degrees outside. I removed one of the two shirts I was wearing, checked the Chunka, and verifying that everything was okay, we started on our walk. Both kids strapped in the Stroller of Doom, Momma herself at the helm.

We circled the neighborhood and talked and laughed. I would occasionally drop back a few feet from the others so that I could look at Lorie's butt and enjoy. I'm like that. I like to appreciate the things in my life. Lorie would catch me doing this and scold me with a smile, and we would be on our way again. We talked about what I was writing. We talked about some things she was working on. We talked about not talking about her butt in front of the kids. We checked on Chunka. We pointed out neighborhood dogs to Action Ashton. We enjoyed each other's company.

We rounded the last corner and found ourselves on our road again, four houses from our driveway. It was at the third house in the countdown that we ran into O.J., an elderly neighbor.

"Nice weather we're having." O.J. spoke to Lorie. Of the two of us, she's friendly.

"Yeah, it's great." Lorie blessed him with a smile.

"Pretty soon it's going to be time." O.J. commented.

"Uh, time for what?" Lorie looked perplexed.

"You know!" O.J. gripped imaginary air and started gyrating, pumping his fists and thrusting his hips back and forth in a lewd gesture. His eyes rolled up and his tongue hung out of his open mouth. He looked like...well you know what he looked like. He looked like he was enjoying himself.

Lorie cleared her throat. I think her eyes started to water. "What does that mean?" She managed to squeeze the question out of her nervous throat. I had already started to walk faster.

"Almost time for mowing the lawn!" O.J. hollered like it was clearly evident what he meant and we were obviously idiots for not getting it the first time around.

"OH!" Lorie sounded positively overjoyed. "OH! Yeaaaaah. Almost that time all right." I looked back. My 'unflusterable' wife was obviously flustered. Her cheeks were rosy-red and her eyes were seven shades of sparkly. A few hurried steps to catch up with me and we were almost to the driveway.

"Well that was weird." I commented.

"What?" Lorie slipped into 'innocent mode'. As if she knew from the start what the old man had meant.

"You know 'what'!" I was in the process of calling her bluff when the stroller wheels hit something. The whole stroller pitched upward as the front wheels caught and held. My tummy smacked into the stroller handle and the whole operation came smacking down to the ground. Ashton and Katie bounced up and down in their seats, and actually looked quite happy about it.

"What happened?" Lorie held herself back from immediately blaming my poor driving.

"I think we hit something." My voice was shaky from the ordeal.

"What could we have hit?" Lorie looped around to the front of the stroller.

That's when we noticed Ashton's Superman action figure was missing.

"Uh oh." Lorie's smile held some seriousness away from the tone in her voice. "This looks bad."

"Supmn... fawl... supmn... fawl." Ashton explained.

I backed the stroller up and we assessed the damage. Superman had tried to stop the Stroller of Doom. We can only assume that his motives were pure. The results, however, can only be categorized as a 'buffing' of the Man of Steel's butt. There was a streak of tiny red plastic shavings at the ground past the wheel of the stroller. And the butt itself? The color was blue. I wonder if Mort Weisinger knew Superman's butt was blue. And I'm afraid the shape was even flatter than my own butt.

It seems that Superman's chiseled buns had brought the stroller to a grinding halt.

Ashton held the action figure gingerly. As if he was sorry to see the damage. He pointed at the blue, smooth surface that used to be Superman's butt. "Boo boo... butt... boo boo... butt... fixit... fixit... " He said.

My first instinct was to run to the store and get a new one for him. Lorie resisted that for me. All in all, quite the eventful family walk.

DCD

Copyright 2002 David Charles Dill Jr.