POB is SOS’s school class parent.  Which means I have to show up to events.   Not so terrible if these events are in the city.

But today, oy, today, we had to schlep to Warwick, New York to pick apples. We could have just gone to the supermarket and got apples.  No, we had to go where THEY live and then kill them ourselves by picking them off the trees that are their life blood.  Just what I wanted to do on a Sunday — go apple-killing with my son.

More to the point, going apple-killing meant that we had to drive (read, get lost) through the great, yet incomprehensible, state of New Jersey.  The Neverlost Lady didn’t even try.  We crossed the George Washington Bridge and she just rebooted and said, “Destination?”  Really, Never-Lost Lady, can’t you even feel bad about leaving us to figure out how to get to Route 4 while we are driving at 60 mph?  No hesitation or guilt in your voice?  Even a “recalculating route” would have been gentler.

So, almost immediately inside the border of New Jersey, we were not only abandoned by Never-Lost Lady, but we were left with POB’s directions-from-hell coupled with her fierce determination to be right.  SOS kept asking, “are we lost?” or sighing, “we should have never rented a car; we should have asked someone from the class to take us.”  SOS was becoming the source of my INsanity.  I say to SOS, “we are a team, Buddy!! And a team member never abandons the team when things don’t go as planned!” The smart-aleck that he is, he says, “what if you didn’t get to choose your team?”  OK, KILL ME NOW.  IT IS NOT EVEN 10:30AM.

We actually arrive on time.  And then I am SOS’s hero.  Almost everyone is late because of traffic or getting lost in New Jersey.  (Really, I didn’t know New Jersey driving was so tricky?)

After everyone gathers, we go to pick Fujis and Macouns (which I kept calling Acuna Matata, from the Lion King).  SOS is in charge of yelling and screaming and running around.  POB is in charge of chit chat.  I am in charge of picking the apples.  Oh, cruel life.

AND, I have to carry that sack of apples all over the orchard.  Just sayin’.

After the kids had screamed (I would like to think it was a joyful noise, but the ringing in my head thinks otherwise), we sat at picnic tables for lunch.  One father, the uber-WASP who heretofore had shown no emotion, said in a relieved tone, “It is so good to see that other kids are just like mine!”  Oh, dear man (with names that, but for the absence of “Cabot” or “Lodge”, are OLD LINE and formidable in that one can forget the order of the names, since no one name stands out as a first name), you can emote with us.  We’re Jews.  We emote over anything or at least tell you to stop complaining.  But I digress.

I was soooooooo finished with the day that at 2:30pm.  When POB said we could finally leave the picnic table where non-driving spouses were sucking down whatever fermented liquids were available, I ran to the car.  “Hold it in!! We can find a restroom on the highway!!!!”  I yelled helpfully.  We were taking back one of SOS’s classmates and her mother.  The only traffic?  When we passed our house to drive to theirs.  Of course.  But it was sort of a captive play date.  I learned about the appeal of Zac Efron to young girls.  I learned that SOS is quite gallant; he told his friend to look away from the signs for the Hustler Club on 12th Avenue in the 40s.

When we got home, I remembered what one of the mothers whispered in my ear, knowing it was my first time at an apple picking outing, “make sure you have a full bottle of wine at home.  At least.”