Mattress Surfers

Gray, Julie and their kids came over from the UK this week to find somewhere to live in the Tacoma area for when Grays UK assignment is up in October. Julie may come back with the kids in August so that they can begin their new school at the start of term time.

On the Friday I came over from a conference San Francisco on BART and Gray picked me up to take me to Bob and Marty’s for dinner where I would be joined by Dena and our kids. It was good to see him and we headed out to buy some beer and (for him) a new bike. Before we headed back to Bob and Marty’s we got a panicked call from Dena to tell us that the children had gone surfing down the stairs on a mattress and crashed spectacularly. Both Jacob and Alexander were lying on the floor in tears complaining of various aches and pains. Dena wanted to call an ambulance and have the children carted off to A&E. However I pointed out that luckily we did in fact have a doctor in the house or at least a doctor in the car with me who would soon be in the house and that he could probably do just as good a job as a couple of paramedics even if our car didn’t have flashing lights or a siren. As we drove home Gray and I hatched our plan of attack- he would go in first and immediately attend to the children who were lying on the floor and during the ensuing commotion I would come in from the side and get the beer into the fridge so it would be ready for when Gray had finished his diagnosis. The plan worked and the children were up on their feet in no time- shaken and stirred and Gray, Bob and I managed to relieve the considerable stress of the incident with a couple of well chilled brews.