One of those moments...

That will come back to me vividly some years from now. The boy and I went to dinner on Monday night at Luzmilla's, the best Mexican place in Humboldt bar none. We go to dinner a lot--we're bachelors, baby--so it was a liesurely meal with light talk about school and work and other things that interrupt our lives.

Afterward we went to the dollar store next door to look for Halloween decorations. Adam hates the dollar store, mostly because his mother likes to spend hours in there looking over the cheap decorations for her home. Adam's mom decorates her home for every season, always having some display around the TV and in the kitchen. Me, I do Christmas. We were looking for Halloween stuff for the outdoors.

They had these dragon/dinosaur hats. You've seen them: The top half of a dinosaur, including teeth, fits on the head like a hat. I put one on and walked around the store going "rowr." Then Adam put one on, and found some cheap sunglasses and walked around like a clueless movie star. We bought the hats and walked the strip mall enjoying the stares. "it's you, it's really you," was the most common comment.

We got in the car still wearing the hats and drove home like that. "What would happen if the CHP stopped you?" He asked. I responded with the imaginary conversation.

"Sir, do you know how fast you were going?"

"Rowr."

"Have you been drinking tonight?"

"Rowr!!"

"Please get out of the car."

"ROWR!!!!!"

So we drove home laughing.

I know, I know. This is one of those "you had to be there" stories to get the humor. But the humor isn't really the point. It's that the boy and I wore those damned hats on a whim, walked around and drove home with them smiling and laughing.

The Greeks believed that if you were a good person, when you died and went to Elysium you got to do the things that made you happy in life. Should I enter Elysium, I will be wearing my dinosaur hat.