keen_gear | Daddy daughter day

Daddy daughter day - A PSL

Make her give up hockey to say please and thank you and have tea parties? Not a chance! She had been all ready to quit in quite the memorable way, having smuggled her hockey stick and helmet in before everyone else got there, her backpack full of hockey pucks. She had been plotting where best to start from.... when they announced the mother and daughter weekend of pampering and princesses and pearls. Disgusted she was just deciding that the head table was the best place to jump up onto, dropping a puck on one of the expensive looking glasses when she got a better idea...

as much fun a wrecking the place would be, she'd get in trouble, and sneaking out was always a pain. Worse, dad might try to make her appologize. And there would be one of those speeches he thought he was so good at. But if she got HIM to pull her out... she could go back to hanging out with Honker, and maybe even be done in time to try for the softball team....

So she sat through insipid tea plotting out how to make this weekend work for her. And the odds to offer anyone who wanted to bet with her if he would even go, and if so, how long it would take before they were on their way back home.

When she was set free for the day, she grabbed her gear and shoved it in a bush so she could get it later, then ran back home with the invitation. She grabbed the mail on the way in and shoved the invitation onto the bottom of the stack. Let's see dad weasel out of this one!

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That was fine, she could work with this. She swallowed a bit. "All the other kids are going to this thing this weekend... and it looks like it might actually be fun, but I can't go with them..."

This was going to be too easy!

"You ... want to go?"

Drake wasn't sure whether to be suspicious, or mystified. He settled for a mix of both, and knelt down in front of her, the way he always did when he wanted to make sure she knew he was listening, that he cared.

"What is it, Gos? Why can't you?"

She shrugged a bit. "It's near this stadium and looked kind of cool, almost...but..." she handed over the invitation, as if reluctantly. "But it's for mothers and daughters... not someone like me..." she kicked at an imaginary stone on the floor, looking down at her feet, though she really really wanted to look at him to see if he was buying it....

He frowned, taking the invitation from her with a wince. Binkie was always hounding him about finding "some nice girl" so Gosalyn could have a strong female role model in her life. Sure, he and Morgana were a bit on-again-off-again, but ... Morgana was married to her business and her ambition. And she wasn't exactly Good Housekeeping cover model material, either. Maybe he could persuade Binkie to -

- no. No, Gosalyn was his daughter, confound it, and anything she needed or wanted, he could provide, and would do so gladly. If she really needed a female role model to have a happy life, would they have let him adopt her without one? Absolutely not. Before he'd even finished opening the envelope, he'd decided.

"Whatever it is, I'll go, and any one of those June Cleavers who tries to tell me no will just have to deal with the harsh truth that fathers can also attend a bring your daughter day -"

He tilted his head at the card, adorned with glittering bubbles and clipart of cucumber slices.

"At the Primp and Pamper Relaxation Retreat."

With a slow blink and a smack of his beak, he folded his arms, tapping the card against his bicep as he looked down at her.

"I get the distinct feeling that I have been, in a word: had."

"You're the one who wanted me to spend time with these girls and to be into all the things they're into. And this was alllllll they would talk about today......"

C'mon dad, tell her she could drop out. Or if not.... well, that's what digital cameras were for....

His pride went to war with his sense of self-preservation... and then he had a thought. So it was a spa. So what? They were supposed to be relaxing. He could use a little less stress. Maybe he could turn this to his advantage and actually kick back, and quietly, subtly, teach Gos not to try and outsmart her father.

"You're right. If I want you to stick to a commitment, I need to practice what I preach, don't I? Sure. I'll go."

Camera it was then. And.... "Can we go shopping so I can have everything I need for the trip? Oh, and since it leaves Friday afternoon, I probably can't go to school friday, huh dad?" She is totally going to milk this for all she can, because if he says no... she just isn't going....

He sucked in a deep breath, trying to find that smidgen of inner tranquility he possessed in the present moment.

"Weeeeelll if it's a spa, we're both going to need some comfortable clothes. And if you insist on missing school, we're going to do something to make up for it. Like your homework. Together. If we're going to bond, we might as well do it right, isn't that right, honey." He gave her a sickly-sweet smile. He could dish it out just as well as she could, after all.

Comfortable clothes? That meant no dresses! Keen gear! And she grinned at him. "Alright, dad, we can do my weekend homework on the bus."

Yeah. Right.

He went ahead and let her think she was going to get her way in that department. It was easier. The false sense of security didn't just work for criminals, after all.

"Feel better now, honey?"

Oh she already had plans that if he tried to make her get a dress... he was getting one too.

She sniffled, but then nodded. "Yeah, dad. But you know...." huge yawn. "I think I'm so tired from all this excitement that I don't have the energy to clean my room. So... i'm just going to go play hockey till dinner."

Hey, worth a shot.

"Aaaaah-ah-ah-ah-ah." He hooked a finger into the back of her collar. "If you have the energy to play hockey, you have the energy to pick your laundry and your toys up off the floor, young lady."

He gave her the No Nonsense look, the one that said she'd pushed about as far as he was willing to budge, and that now she'd have to be the one ponying something up to the table on this deal.

Dang. Oh well. "Fine...." she had an idea how to make that fun anyway. "But desert had better be something yummy!" she said as she headed upstairs. She could always grab her stuff after dinner. But the last word was fun... and she'd figured out a way to play laundry basketball....

Needless to say the room wasn't going to get cleaner.....

It wouldn't be a surprise, at the least. Honestly, the surprise would be if she really did clean her room. But nevertheless, he goes about getting dinner ready with his meager culinary skills, and the night progresses as usual.

When Friday morning arrives, she might think she's going to be able to sleep in, but she's got another think coming. He comes in with the breakfast tray, two bowls of Frosty-Os, and a flat package in wrapping paper.

"Good morning, sunshine."

She blinked, sitting up in bed and rubbing her eyes. For a moment she'd forgotten what today was. She eyed the breakfast tray suspiciously. But she did want the gift. "It's not my birthday," she said, sleepily. "Am I dying?" She was only half joking.

Inside the wrapping paper was a somewhat unassuming present: a hardcover notebook, styled to look like the outside of an old Nintenduck Whiffle Boy cartridge. Drake perched on the foot of her bed and waited for her to demolish the paper, the way she always did.

If she opened the journal to inspect it, two tickets to the Calisota Science Museum would fall out. If she insisted on not going to school before this trip, she was still going to learn. Little did she know that he didn't intend on making it torture: they had recently installed an exhibit about the history of video game technology.

He waited patiently to see her reaction, with a ghost of a smile. "I sure hope not."

She sat up enough to grab the gift and rushed to open it. She got excited at the style until she realized... "Wait, it's just a book?" She made a face. "Dad. Notebooks aren't gifts. They're school things." She yawned, and remembered a bit more of the weekend. "You're going to make me take notes at a girl's spa weekend?" Something didn't seem right about that. And no, she had not yet opened it.

"A-noooooooooooo." He gestured to the book with a twist of his wrist, indicating that she should look inside. Not only because the tickets were there, but there was a pocket in the back with stickers, and the end papers were printed with old original concept art. As school things went, this one was pretty snazzy.

She gave him a look like she wasn't buying it, then she flipped through the book. The tickets fell into her lap, but she saw the stickers and the art before she could pick them up, so for the moment they're forgotten. "Keen gear! These are neat! Thanks!" Okay, now she might be feeling the slightest bit guilty about tricking him into this weekend....

Having had a day or two to mull things over, he'd begun to realize there was probably a trick to it. But if she was tricking him, she usually felt he deserved it, which meant he'd made the wrong call again. Where any sane individual would admit that up front and cancel the whole thing, Drake was too stubborn. So he'd arranged the museum as a counterbalance. With a twist, of course.

"Thought they'd be good on your lunch box. Kids, uh, still do that, right?"

She rolled her eyes a bit at him. Could he be any more uncool if he tried? Nah, probably not. "We don't ride dinosaurs to school either, dad."

"Hardy har har, daughter mine." He made a face at her. "You know, for someone who wants to be a crimefighter someday, you're not being very thorough..."

Now her eyes narrowed at him. "Oh, like you always are?" She was missing something? What was she missing? Or was it that she wasn't bouncing about the trip?

"Hey, hey, HEY!" He scowled, trying not to show that that little barb had actually hurt. He knew he didn't always catch everything, but it was something he was overly sensitive about. Whenever he found out he'd missed a detail or forgotten something, he was prone to mentally kick himself about it for hours, sometimes even days afterward. "It's not my fault if you miss the best part."

"Best part?" she asked. Okay, now she was excited. "What best part? Where?"

He glanced significantly at the spot on her blankets where the tickets had fallen and cleared his throat. "Oh, you know, around."

"Around? What's that supposed to me......" she trailed off, following his eyes. She spotted the tickets. "Keen Gear, Dad! What is this for, hockey?" she asked, bouncing. So he wanted to skip the weekend and was bribing her with tickets? She could work with that! She looked at the tickets then scowled, feeling tricked. "A museum? You sure this wasn't a gift for Honker?" Of course if it was, she'd get dragged along anyway.

"You didn't even look to see what museum it was! It's the video game museum, in the same town where the spa is. It's even within walking distance! And look."

He reached into his robe pocket and pulled out the brochure he'd stashed there. "Most of the games are still playable. And you can see the inside of them, how they work. I talked to your teacher and they said they'd let you have the day off IF you could do some sort of side project for History class. I thought ... this might be a fair compromise."

Drake tried not to look too crestfallen at her response. He'd thought he'd done well. At this rate, he realized, he'd never get this parenting thing right. But he loved her too much to give up.

Edited (tense fail) 2018-11-30 23:47 (UTC)

Her eyes widened at he talked, and she snatched the brochure to look at it before launching herself at him so hard and fast that he;ll have to move quick to keep them from falling over, breakfast tray, chair and all.

"THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!" She could get out from under the paper thing. But this was going to be sooooo much better than please and thnk yous all day!

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Daddy daughter day - A PSL

My icons are not so good for this scam, lol

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