Thank goodness Asshole was there....

It's not often that I am actually thankful for the prescence of my ex husband, Lieutenant Dan. Normally, having him around is just uncomfortable, particularly when his very pregnant wife is in tow. He is EXTREMELY rascist, opinionated, condescending and a whole slew of other bad adjectives on top of the fact that he is almost 2 full months late (as usual on his child support). I would love for the Police Department, for which he SO proudly works, to know that he is slipping slowly into deadbeat dad-dom (the particular police department that he works for has been known for suspending officers for being behind on child support...seriously).

But yesterday was a rare, very rare moment that I thanked God for his prescence. In the midst of Luke's birthday party, at Chuck E Cheese's (where a kid can be a kid, and a parent can need a xanax) a very large stranger walked into our party area. The fact that every kid and parent was white with the exception of Fernando and his mother who are Nicaraguan, and Hannah and her dad who are Vietnamese, made him stick out even more since he was HUGE and black and reminded me of the prisoner from the Green Mile.

I looked at him and wondered who he was with and then continued to dish out cake and ice cream to the chubby kid who was screaming that he wanted it NOW.

I turned back and caught Lieutenant Dan's eye and we both gave each other a knowing look that only people who have once been in love can do. We saw Mr. Stranger Danger sit at a table next to one of the mom's that was at our party.

He reached out his hand and started stroking her leg. Lauren's mom just turned red and kind of looked around praying that someone noticed, and that is when he leaned in to attempt to kiss her, and that is when Luke's father, Lieutenant Dan sprung into action.

Dan jumped up and grabbed the man by the arm and very very calmly, in a style that only Dan is capable of - he walked Mr. Stranger Danger out of Chuck E Cheese into the parking lot and called our local police.

It turns out that the man was not okay in the head, was fairly mentally retarded and that this was not the first time that he had wandered into this Chuck E Cheese and harrassed people.

I thanked Lieutenant Dan when he came back in and truly was just that - thankful. At the time that this happened, Ziggy was playing games with the kids, which is what he's normally doing when children are around - any excuse for Skeet Ball! Ziggy just loves kids and given the opportunity to shoot deer with a fake gun, or hang out with adults, Ziggy will be shooting the deer and winning over every kid in the room.

Other than Ziggy and Dan, there were no other men around. It was all moms at Luke's party and the average age of the Chuck E Cheese personnel was about 17, so without Lieutenant Dan there, I'm not sure what we all would have done.

Once the drama was over, Dan resumed his place at the party - sitting there, being dull and generally useless. In all that free time, you would think he may have had time to write out a god damn child support check, but oh well.