The Running Ogre

Let me share with you a humorous short story about an outing Finn and I recently experienced. As a stay at home dad, I have to find ways to fill 12 hours a day for 4 days a week with new and exciting antics for Finn and myself. One of the things I like to do that takes up a small chunk of that time is taking Finn for walks, or should I say pushing him around in his stroller. We usually just walk around in our neighborhood checking out the sights, sounds, and smells of God's work. This particular day, I needed to go up to the grocery store for some tomatoes and thought that it would be a fun experience for Finn since he's only been to the grocery store once or twice. This was a little further than we normally walked, but I figured we were up for the challenge. I knew the weather forecast had called for rain most of the week, so I, like any good parent, checked the current local Doppler radar. Everything looked pretty good, I figured we had an hour or two before it rained, but I brought my rain jacket just in case. So we make it to the store, do our shopping, and start heading home. We get back to our street and I could tell we were quickly running out of time before the rain arrived. I took out my rain jacket and put it over Finn's stroller and by this time he was fast asleep. As I picked up the pace, a neighbor driving past us stops to talk. This particular neighbor likes to talk A LOT. He's an old preacher who lives across the street from us and ALWAYS chats it up when he sees any of us. Not a problem, but on this particular day I didn't have the time...it was starting to sprinkle. I told the preacher (when he stopped talking long enough) that I had to be on my way and he obliged. At this point the rain was becoming heavier and I'm still several blocks from our house, so I pick up the pace even more. Halfway down my street I see another neighbor standing in front of his house in the rain. He sees us coming and slowly starts heading to the street to greet us. As he approaches, I'm wondering why he is standing outside like it's not even raining...then it dawned on me, he hadn't seen the baby yet. So I rush over to his driveway, quickly offer to lift the rain jacket for a quick peek, and tell him I've got to go. By now, the bottom has dropped out and it's raining cats and dogs. I still have 300 or so yards before we're safely home and I decide to make a run for it. It really didn't matter by now, I was completely soaked and the baby was just as dry as could be. Never the less, I ran all the way home pushing the stroller. After all the commotion of the rain, running, and carrying the stroller up the steps, I uncover the baby to find him sleeping like (you guessed it) a baby. The next day I'm taking Finn for another walk and a neighbor who I've waved to for years, but never spoke to, stopped to talk to us. He asked me how tall I was, which I thought was an odd question at the time. Turns out he saw me running down the road pushing the stroller in the rain the day before and he said I looked 7 feet tall. So not only did I look like an idiot for running down the street in the rain pushing a stroller, but apparently I also looked like an ogre.