“Dad, you know what’s really cool about the Pre-Release of the Pokemon Dragons Exalted series? Yeah, it’s that you get like six booster packs at the same time. I mean that never happens. So, yeah so I like to put them in a bunch and feel like the whole thing. That’s a whole lot of cards, like sixty cards, you know?”

“Yup.”

As we cross the park, heading to his summer day camp, he talks through everything, occasionally raising his voice over the gardeners mowing the grass.

“I can’t wait, dad.” Really loud.

I wait for the mower to move away.

“Soon enough, kid. Sunday”s only three days away.”

“Actually, it’s four days, dad.”

Punctiliously precise little p….!

“Today’s Thursday, so count.”

He puts up a hand.

“Thursday…”

He lowers a finger….

“Friday…”

A second finger goes.

He looks at me, with  a crooked smile.

“Saturday…”

He bends a third finger. He holds up the remaining finger, displaying it proudly. Of course, it’s the most significant one… the middle digit.

“And Sunday. Hahaha.”

“Predictable barnyard humor.”

I suddenly bend and snap my teeth, practically grazing the tip of his finger.

“Woooaaahh!.” He yelps like a frightened pup.

“Cobra attack!”

“You almost bit my finger off.”

“Damn! I missed.”

“Daaaaddd…”

“So how many days was it?”

“Four.”

“Fail! You can’t count Sunday, That’s the actual Pre-Release.”

“Yeah, it’s at eleven, so yeah, we have to remember to get up early.”

Says the kid who’s generally up at 6 every morning, weekends included.

“Focus, Noah.”

“Okay, dad.”

I’m suddenly distracted by a long skirted woman coming our way. Remarkably, her breasts are attempting to liberate themselves from the constraints of an ill fitting top and sheer bra. As she comes within a few steps, they peek out to the left and peek out to the right, like a Baptist Hallelujah choir.

The sudden flash of dark nipples, that I divine to be florid, wipes my mind clean of any other consideration.

“Dad?”

She walks by. Smiles at Noah. Glowers at me. If her nipples had tongues they would be sticking out at me. Blood red. I turn to see what the rear looks like. Swinging and lascivious.

“Dad! Focus!”

“Yes. Three days because you can’t count the day itself.”

I’ve gotten pretty good at multitasking. One of the gifts of fatherhood.

“Oh!”

Noah is silent for a moment.

I seem to have noticed that when I don’t shave for a couple of days, I attract sexual energy. Looks, smiles, occasional erotic contacts and now and then actually getting naked with an urgent pressing of flesh to flesh.

Must be the rapscallion look of a 48 hour growth.

“Dad, you know that the best Pokemon cards are the Legendary X cards. Right?”

“Right.”

He darts me a look of suspicion.

“Do you care?”

Not really.

“Of course.”

“Okay. So, yeah, I saw that if you sit at the second table you know when they give out the booster packs? Yeah, then you get a Legendary in your booster for sure.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, because you know when they open the box with all the booster packs, the Legendaries are always at the back of the box and like there are, uhm, like thirty-six boosters in a box and three Legendaries. So, you know, that’s six kids and like if you’re at the second table, you get like you know, the last boosters.So you get the Legendaries”

“I’m pretty sure they mix them up.”

“No, they don’t. And like we have to get there early, like, so that I can sit exactly where I have to, to get the Legendary.”

No sense arguing with him about the likelihood of Nintendo always putting the prized Legendary cards in the same place in all the booster boxes.

“Well that’s your hypothesis, Noah. You know what a hypotheses is?”

“Of course, dad, I’m soon in Grade Four. It’s like when you have an idea about, like, nature or stuff.”

“Yeah, you have an idea or a theory about how something works. And what do you do with a hypothesis?”

“You have to find out if it’s true?”

“Exactly. You test it and if the results contradict the hypothesis, what then?”

“Euh, I don’t know. You change the hypothe…hypothe…”

“Hypothesis.”

“Yeah, it’s like you have to lisp to say it, like you know, you need to have a speech defect.”

He lisps away, spraying spittle everywhere.

“So Sunday, we find out if your hypothethiththth is right.”

I lisp it to death. Noah giggles and joins in, practically spitting on himself.

I will shave tomorrow. So that I have a 48 hour beard. Cute Mom’s at Pokemon tournaments. Data for my research.

Ah! Science!