He's Four

I wonder how old my daughter will be when she's five. I didn't turn five until I was about eight when all the restaurants upped their "kids eat free" meals to five. I'm trying to set small attainable goals as part of my "stop worrying about everything" campaign. It would be nice to be so well off financially that I'm willing to pay for my kid to eat out. See, small attainable goal. Considering how few places actually let kids eat free these days, I technically have already accomplished it. Like Chris Rock's dad on the show, I watched her waste $3.23 worth of breakfast last weekend at the Silver Diner.

I remember my mother asking me what I wanted for my eighth birthday. I told her that I wanted to go to Chesapeake Bay Seafood House and that I didn't want to have to pretend to be five. I got tired of eating those baby gulf shrimp that came on the "free" menu. I wanted grown up shrimp. Growing up I was so short and my voice was so high pitched that I was somehow frozen in time as a five year old. Now for those who have seen me in person, yestechnically I am still short BUT if the light hits me at a certain angle and the observer has a blood-alcohol level of at least .26 or sober and standing at least 7.5 feet away then an optical illusion is created whereby I appear to be six foot one...and that's good enough for me!

Anyway, back then I used to treat going out to eat like a Broadway performance. I knew my character's history: I was four and a half years old in Ms Dixon's Pre-K class at Maury Elementary. I enjoyed big wheeling, watching Transformers and more than anything I wanted to see the South of Sesame Street before I died. I even went to the trouble of dumbing down my vocabulary and diction to lend authenticity to the role. In reality however, the waitress didn't care. "He's four" always seemed to steal my spotlight and ruin hours of preparation.

Like in gymnastics, puberty can kill the careers of a lot of aspiring restaurant actors like myself. Around nine or ten I started growing a mustache and went from a baby-faced cherub to Hoggle from Labyrinth. It was a good run though.

[caption id="attachment_2133" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="What do you mean? Of course I'm five!"][/caption]