Where's Mr. Hyde?

Remember the game where you scour cartoon pictures looking for a tall skinny guy with a red striped shirt, hat and glasses named Waldo?  We played our own version of that game on my holiday trip home.

After doing me the "favor" of coming on the long trip back to my home state, Mr. Hyde laid down some ground rules.  He announced, “I need to be able to take off without you hassling me.”  We are staying with my family two states away. Where is he going to go when he doesn’t know his way around?  He said being surrounded by my family might be too much for him so he should be able to take a break. I thought it was weird, but I was sick so I said “whatever.”

I have to give him credit; on his first solo excursion, he bought flowers for my aunt to thank her for letting us stay at her house.  It was a very nice gesture and she told my family Mr. Hyde must have been pretending to disappear so he could pick up something nice for her.  Well, that didn’t explain the other times he went MIA.  The next time, while playing card games, he up and left for a couple of hours. The third time he claimed it was my fault. 

Mr. Hyde was asleep on the couch, so my sisters and I ran out to a nearby store while the kids were playing with Grandma and Grandpa.  He woke up and was pissed I had left without telling him.  He retaliated by just disappearing again for a few hours.  I apologized later and told him I hadn’t wanted to wake him up and we were just running out for a minute, but it didn’t matter.

The real game came later when my sister presented my Mom with a photo calendar.  Months ago she asked all of us to send pictures of our kids and families along with everyone’s birth dates so she could compile this calendar for Mom.  What better way to enjoy pictures of your kids and grandkids than on a calendar you look at everyday?  We all agreed it was a wonderful idea and emailed our pictures and dates to her.