We moved to Hilldale and got deep into our roots. Neither of us were sure where this kid came from.  We woke up after a night of hardcore roodletoodles and he was just sprawled out on the floor, face down in a bowl of dog food. Then Connie remembered that she’d had this kid months ago and I remembered something about that, but not enough to believe her, so we got the DNA test and sure enough, the kid was mine. It’s amazing how many kids you can have without even knowing it. Luckily, we’d misplaced Saskia and Panda on a trip to the Frankspot, so we didn’t have to deal with their shit during this special time with this kid that we just started calling Mahalo. The thing was, Mahalo just disappeared one night. Connie said she misplaced him at the lumber yard, (she left to take the kid to the grocery store, then came home without him. I never asked). Saskia and Panda somehow found their way home soon after. Connie and I realized that, no matter how hard we tried, we could never lose them. A bittersweet reality as, without those kids around, Connie and I had really been beginning to enjoy life together; movies, pulling four ways with friends and strangers alike. The worst of all this shit is that I just totally dropped the ball on everything I’d shaped up on the speedboat deals. The halcyon days were over.