Day 8

A while back I found myself at a ten-year-old’s birthday party – let’s call Missy. Missy, as you can imagine, had invited many other ten-year-old girls to her party, including one especially precocious girl we will call Amanda. Amanda had spent the night at Missy’s house. As it turned out, Amanda’s parents were in a bitter custody battle and while although attending the party had been approved by her mom, her dad, was not okay with her daughter being there. In fact he quickly and suddenly stormed into the party interrupting an otherwise quaint day.

Without exaggeration, Amanda’s dad caused a terrible scene making all party goers very uncomfortable. To make matters worse, as Amanda had spent the night, she had a number of personal items to round up prolonging her time at the party. He father, now even more infuriated by an increased delay to his time with his daughter (which I am sure went well), left to wait outside. Amanda, sensing the tension in the room, paused and said to all of us, “Sorry, my dad is bi-focal,” and promptly left to go gather her stuff in Missy’s room.

“Bi-focal?” we asked one another. What did she mean by that? Missy’s grandmother was the first to get it – “BI-POLAR” – she shouted out; he must be bi-polar.