The Mayor Is Under Attack.

If you’re not familiar with Foursquare, it’s a location-based social networking application for mobile users.  I use it to ‘check-in’ at my various venues throughout the day.  It doesn’t really serve any monumental purpose, it’s more of an addiction to pass the time, and also a great way for stalkers and serial killers to find me when they’re ready to slice my face off.  Every once in awhile you can accumulate a meaningless badge or obtain a Mayorship.  A Mayorship means that you hold the title for being at a specific venue the most times within a 60 day period.  Currently, I’ve got five Mayorships.

Ten years ago, if this app existed, my most frequented places probably would’ve been my bed (until 2pm on the wkds), the beach, or a collection of bars with continuous happy hour.  As of today, I am the Mayor of the local pizza shop (dollar slice Friday with my daughter), a pediatric office, a bridge that I cross on our morning walk and two playgrounds.

How the mighty have fallen.

As Mayor of Del Rey Lagoon Park, I’m responsible for bringing the Goldfish and fruit snacks, ‘wa-wa’ (water), sidewalk chalks, shovels and buckets to fling sand and the emergency wardrobe change in the event Ava gets a busted lip on an unsupervised run down the slide while I ‘check-in’ at the park on my phone.  I also have to invent fun games and new gimmicks to keep her occupied.  One of my recent ways of keeping it fresh, was chasing each other, back and forth through the grass.

At first, it was a playful game of cat and mouse, but as I ran twenty yards ahead and dropped to play dead, I opened one eye to see this monster bearing down on me.

She was coming at me like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man from Ghostbusters.

That’s when I pulled out the big guns to lay her down….Bubbles.  I drew my multi-holed bubble wand, inhaled a deep breath and unloaded.

It was as if she ran into a brick wall.  Her momentum halted, she became disoriented.  With soap in her eyes, I bought myself a few secondds to get to my feet and avoid being another victim of the soles of her pink Converse.  For now, the Mayor of the Lagoon lives to play another day.