Wanted: Person who can press a button.

I am such a goof: If a place of business opens its doors at 10:30 a.m. on eight consecutive Sundays, I’m one of those silly, silly people who believe that a pattern of some sort has been established. But here we were at the duckpin bowling alley at 10:45 a.m. on a Sunday morning, and the place was sealed up tight. Okay. So they’re running a little late. Things happen. The usual two cars were in the employee parking spaces, so I knew someone had to be in there. We sat down and waited.

After some time, I wandered over to the “Duckpin Lounge,” a second entrance leading directly to the bar. To my surprise, it was open. I poked my head in and discovered the shaggy-haired guy who, over the past couple of months, I guessed was the Man in Charge.

“We open at noon,” he said sharply, when he saw me.

I said, “We’ve been every Sunday for the past few weeks, and the place has been open by now.”

He said, “Today is Mother’s Day and I don’t have anybody coming in until noon.”

Oh. Is that how it works? That’s a rather casual approach to things, isn’t it? Maybe that’s why there isn’t a sign on the door posting the hours — it would read “Whenever to Whenever.”

I wanted to say to guy, “Well… you’re here.” It’s not like we wanted to inflict this guy with a 15-kid birthday party. Just open up a lane, lay down kid-friendly the gutter bumpers, and then you can go back to the tough job of sitting there. I mean, we’ve been here every week for two months. I grant you we don’t spend a lot of money each week, but still, at some point I thought we might be worth, if not Most Favored Guest status, then at least a flicker of recognition. Apparently we still have a ways to go.

Went back to the family, and broke the sad news. Everyone handled it fine — no temper tantrums. We went to the mall instead. Our trip to the mall always follows the same routine: First, the kids cavort in the Playground of Large Plastic Objects. J watches them while I pop in to the video game store to see if there’s any bargain games I want to pick up. (There rarely is, but last time I bought “The Getaway” for $2.99. The guy behind the counter said it was pretty good, but that it was “impossible to die.” He said that once you got sufficiently wounded, you could just lean up against a wall for a minute, and you’d heal yourself fully. This turned out to be true. And yet, I have been unable to complete the first round without dying. I suck.)

After the playground, Alex will want to look at the large mechanical cars and rockets and Snoopy’s Doghouse, all of which will move slightly up and down, or back and forth, with the insertion of two quarters. But the kids are happy whether we pay the money or not, so we don’t.

Then it’s over to the pet store to look at doggies and fishes and lizards. The signs claiming that every dog is microchipped have been taken down. I bet the staff was getting too many questions.

Next stop: The water fountain in what used to be the midpoint of the mall, before they expanded it. There’s a train ride here, too — a kid-sized train in a 15×25 foot corral. 90% of the time, the young person in charge of the train is just sitting there reading a book. That’s because the ride is a whopping $1.50. If they lowered it to 50 cents per child, they’d have to put up velvet ropes and hire a muscle-bound doorman.

The bookstore is next. They just opened up a Borders in here, a nice big one. And I should have bought a book, as I am going to be on trains for four hours today, and I want to take a break from all the kiddie and young-adult fare I’ve been reading. Oh well — Lord knows I have quite a few books at home that I’ve never technically read. One of them will suffice.

After the bookstore, a change in the routine: We took the kids to the family restaurant. We haven’t done this since the kids were in strollers. We’re not big on paying $7.50 for a hamburger in the first place, and our aversion is sealed when you throw in the added possibility of one or both kids having some kind of meltdown. We have a phobia of being the parents that everyone else in the room glares at.

But the kids behaved wonderfully, and ate a lot of french fries. The food was only eh, but it was a nice change of pace. We even splurged on Mrs. Fields cookies for dessert. Considering our attitude towards $7.50 burgers, buying from Mrs. Fields is, for us, an act of wild abandon. Nearly $4.00 for two cookies! I’m guessing the markup isn’t as much as I might first think — it’s not like dough is the only expense — but still. Those are some expensive damn cookies. If only I could buy the recipe from the company, then I could just make them myself! But I bet they charge an arm and a leg for something like that.