Bob Flash Forward 2 years

 love my grandsons. Sometimes I have to make tough choices: watch a movie with my daughter… or play a game with the grandsons. And of course—the grandsons always win.

We’re playing Sequence one night. By turn three, Z is already bored. I start rattling off names trying to get his attention:
“Jimmy? John? Joe?”

And he says, “Just call me Bob.”

Big mistake. Because from that moment on—he was Bob.

At first, he laughed. Then he politely asked us to stop. “That isn’t my name.”
And we said, “Sure thing… Bob.”

Now listen—there may have been a little wine involved. Okay, a lot of wine. Enough wine that we thought “Bob” was the funniest thing on the planet.

Z did not think it was funny. He stormed upstairs.

I go up to apologize, because he’s my baby—even if he is 13. I open the door, and there he is. Dead center on the bed, sitting cross-legged under a quilt, looking like the world’s saddest teepee.

  II say, “I’m sorry, Z. I went too far.”

And just when he’s about to forgive me, my daughter sneaks up behind me and whispers… “Bob.”

Ohhh, he was done with us.

But later, he came downstairs with a peace offering: a pizza. Because in our family, forgiveness is spelled P-I-Z-Z-A.

Flash forward two years. Freaky coincidence—it’s St. Patrick’s Day again. We’re at Olive Garden. My daughter asks if I want wine. I say, “Not now.”
She goes, “That’s okay, we’ll get a bottle for later.”

Z immediately says, “NO. You two drink too much and harass me.”

And without missing a beat, his mom and I both turn to him and go… “Yes, we do… Bob.”

We laughed so hard in the car afterward, we couldn’t even go into the liquor store. Z was convinced they’d think we were already drunk.

 We were not.