I'll Take Manhattan

This weekend, Manager Dad and I wanted to give Spawn an end-of-summer last hurrah by planning a weekend activity that was more fun than our usual trip to Costco. I have a friend who lives in New York City who was going to be out of town, and she very nicely (although I am pretty sure I saw fear in her eyes) agreed to let us stay in her apartment.

With the free place to stay, I thought we could do a weekend on the (sort of) cheap, but I must have been smoking something because as anyone with half a brain cell can tell you, Manhattan is not known for its great bargains. Everything we wanted to eat, see, or do cost a minimum of eighteen dollars per person. We probably could have stayed home and bought a used Toyota Corolla for less money.

But if Mastercard is to be believed, you can't put a price on family memories, and I was determined to expose Spawn to some legendary New York attractions. So naturally, first on the list was to sample authentic regional cuisine at a Times Square tourist trap themed restaurant. According to Us Weekly, Brad and Angelina took all five hundred of their kids to a place called "Mars 2112," and they're all worldly and shit, so if it was good enough for them, it's good enough for me. They start your 'experience' by stuffing you into a sort of elevator pod thing which simulates a rocket ride to outer space:

The Girl: (cackling) THIS is the coolest restaurant EVER.

The Boy: (terrified) I think we are really blasting off into space. (Grabs both of my ears and shouts directly into my nostrils). DON'T LEAVE ME ALONE ON MARS! I PROMISE TO BEHAVE FROM NOW ON!

The Girl: (turning green) Actually, I think I am going to throw up.


We got out of the simulator and The Boy spotted the costumed 'aliens', which made him completely unhinged, so he spent the entire meal in a state of panic, hiding under the table whenever any of the waitstaff even LOOKED in our general direction. We wound up throwing away most of Spawn's $15-a-plate dinners because the pasta was "too slimy" and the sauce "too chunky." After that, we gave up on restaurants and fed them a diet of bread, bottled water, and bananas, just like the monkeys at the Central Park Zoo.

We did a double-decker bus tour, although we had to de-bus after twenty minutes due to kid boredom and the absence of bathrooms. A pedicab bike tour through Central Park was a lot more successful, although it wasn't quite as much fun for the kid that was biking us around. Between the screeching of the bike's gears and the pained expression on his face, it was clear that he regretted offering to take all four of us in a cab built to safely carry MAYBE two people, and even then only if those two people were Kate Moss and Keira Knightley.

Hands down, Spawn's favorite part of the trip was shopping. We gave them each a $20 budget, which lasted about fifteen seconds at their "retailtainment" stores of choice: American Girl and the Pokemon section of the Nintendo store. Even I was excited about the Nintendo store because they had a stash of Wii Fits*, which I'd been dropping hints about as a potential birthday present ever since we got the evil Wii in the first place.

So thanks to the magic of capitalism, the trip was a smashing success. Spawn had so much fun that The Girl cried the entire train ride home because she didn't want to leave the city.

And now, back to reality, and the new school year, which starts Friday. I'd like to give a special middle finger shoutout to our local Board of Education. Thank you so very much for making the first day of school the DAY BEFORE the Labor Day holiday weekend.

*Warning: Do NOT subject yourself to the Wii Fit unless you have very high self esteem, and/or have been drinking. I took the "fit test" and despite the fact that I run 35 miles a week, it began taunting me, first criticizing my my Body Mass Index and then asking me if I trip and fall a lot because it thinks I am uncoordinated. But the kicker was when it loudly announced that my Wii Fit age as SIXTY ONE. I will NEVER hear the end of this from my family.