Scavenging

Because I have so much free time on my hands, what with the kids taking care of themselves and all, I signed up for an online scavenger hunt. It was a challenge on one of the message boards I frequent and it involves taking digital pictures and posting them, with your screenname included to prohibit cheating. Asdie form the general neglect of my children that this requires on my part as I wrack my brains for creative ways to get a picture of a crackhead, it also involved my children in the following situations:

• crackhouse - we were required to find a pic of a crackhouse. Sadly, I know just where one is. I used to work across the street from it, in a rehab, ironically, and the rehab clients all knew it was a crackhouse. So I drove my kids to the 'hood and parked on a side street outside a crackhouse to get a picture. "Tell Daddy what we did today?' "Daddy, we went to a crackhouse." I can see OCFS at my doorstep already. This trip also required a photo of a ghetto so I pulled off to another side street to get a picture of the ghetto. Nothing like a field trip to the 'hood. I looked for a pimp when I was there, but coudn't find one at 10 a.m., so I improvised on that picture and dressed Ruthie's Ken doll up like one. I think that photo was disqualified
  
• traffic lights - I had to get a green traffic light, a yellow one, and a red one. Now the other team wisely parked somewhere and waited for the light to change to the appropriate colors. Not me. I drove around with elbows on the steering wheel, a camera in one hand and a paper with my screenname in the other, trying to navigate traffic and frame my pics. The yellow light, in particular, was a bitch. But I got it.
  
• churches - I dressed my children at 7 a.m. on a non-school day, and packed them in the car in 35 degree weather so we could go get a picture of a mosque and a Seventh Day Adventist Church.
• pregnant dog - A pregnant dog. If only I'd known a breeder. But alas, I do not, so I went in search of that twisted toy that's a dog with removable puppies in her belly. Apparently that one isn't sold in stores anymore. But I did stumble upon a dog costume on clearance for 80 cents, so I did this to Helen:

My team won.