Da-Da is busy this week writing about toll stuff and other assorted (yawn) government stuff, so I'm gonna write his column. My name is Glen and I have a Ma-Ma and Da-Da and a dog named Banyan who kinda looks like a dalmatian but fatter. Da-Da never takes Banyan to work cause he says she works guarding the house, which she does pretty well except for when someone stole Da-Da's bicycle from the shed last week and Banyan didn't even wake up to bark.

So he took me to work on Wednesday, which is the longest day of the week if you count the letters, which I can't. The place where Da-Da works is cool because they have a candy bowl which is always full. I don't understand this. I don't understand why adults, who can choose what they eat, would eat anything except candy, which is clearly the best tasting food in the world.

When we got to the office, I made a beeline for this candy bowl, which I remembered from being there around Christmas. Back then, I had to wait for an adult to give me some, but now I'm big enough to climb a stack of newspapers sitting nearby and help myself.

The Ma-Ma-type people at the office got a little nervous like Ma-Mas and Nanas always do cause they thought I might fall, but Da-Da told them I was a good climber, and when I wasn't being a good climber, I was a pretty good faller since I never seem to get hurt.

Anyway, I didn't fall and reached into the candy bowl and pulled out my favorite type which is M&Ms. But most of the M&Ms were at the bottom of the bowl and hard to reach, especially when you're standing tippy-toed on a stack of newspapers tall as me.

So I had to mostly settle for little Hershey's chocolate bars and Reese's peanut butter cups, which are kind of hard to eat cause you have to peel off the paper first or they taste as bad as asparagus. M&Ms are better and easier to eat, which means you can stuff more in your mouth before your Da-Da comes along to pull you away.

The Ma-Ma type people made a big fuss over me on account of me being two and a half years old. Seems that the older you get, the less cute you become until you get real old like my great-Nana Pauline, at which time you start growing smaller and become cute again.

Everyone at the office said I looked exactly like Ma-Ma or Da-Da. I wonder why people are always saying that since I don't look anything like them cause I'm a lot smaller. Maybe we look alike cause we all have two ears and two eyes and one nose and toes ranging from the big one that went to the market to the little one that cried "wee-wee-wee" and ran all the way home.

Anyway, I grabbed as much candy as I could and let Da-Da take me for a walk to the tennis tournament. When we got to the ticket booth, the Ma-Ma type person said that the Sampras match was cancelled. I stood up in my stroller and asked if they had any candy or ice cream or anything related to Star Wars inside. She laughed but didn't seem to understand me, which happens all the time, especially in Miami.

Da-Da said that it didn't matter whether Sampras played or not unless it meant getting a discount on the ticket, which it didn't. So we went inside and it was like an art festival with all the tents, except that there was no art. Mostly there was clothes and food and other things to buy, also not at a discount.

We walked around till we came to the grandstand court where four Ma-Ma-type people were playing tennis. When one hit the ball, I cheered, but Da-Da shushed me. Then another one missed the ball and everyone cheered. This seemed stupid to me, that you cheer when they miss the ball rather than when they hit it. So I continued to cheer every time one of them hit the ball until other people in the stands started looking at us like we had poo-poo in our pants, so we left.

Da-Da took me to a place just for kids where I could play ball. But the games were for bigger kids and the only thing I could do was kick a soccer ball into the goal. Nobody clapped but Da-Da cause teenagers generally don't see little kids as being cute so much as being in the way.

Next we went to a movie in a great big tent where you sit on the floor and the movie goes on all around you on nine or six screens. I don't know for sure cause I can't count past three. In one way the movie was kind of neat, but it was also kind of stupid since you can't see everything unless you're a Ma-Ma-type of person with eyes in the back of your head. Also, there was no popcorn, which is the best part of going to the movies.

After the movie, we stopped by a pub tent so Da-Da could get a beer. I sat on a stool by the bar, but the man who gave Da-Da his beer said I couldn't sit there on account it would look bad or was illegal or something. Nobody else was there except this Nana and Grampa-type couple who seemed to enjoy my company, especially when I started chatting with them. But the man behind the bar made me leave. Da-Da said not to feel bad since getting kicked out of a bar is something that happens to everyone eventually.

Next we went to the big stadium and took an elevator to the top button, then walked up steps even higher until we were almost at the very top of the stadium. Two Ma-Ma-types were playing, but they were so far away that they didn't seem real.

It was a lot of fun to whack Da-Da with a cardboard fan that some Nana-type person gave me. As usual, Da-Da laughed the first few times, then for no apparent reason decided it wasn't funny anymore. That's okay, I found it more fun to just drop things through the stands, like the fan and an empty cup and whatever was laying around. Car keys would have been really fun cause of the noise they make, but I couldn't find any.

Da-Da said that it was a good tennis match and I should watch it, but I wanted to leave cause walking up and down the stadium steps was sure to be more fun. We did it a few times before Da-Da spotted a guy we see on the TV news every night. Jim Berry, which sounds like a type of Juicy Juice, but isn't. Da-Da talked to him, then we went to get ice cream, which was the highlight of the day. I got a strawberry cone and we sat at a cafe-type table while I ate some and wore the rest.

Unlike Ma-Mas, Da-Das will let you walk around with melted ice cream on your lips and cheeks and hands so you can always lick some off later, after your cone runs out.

We walked around, then left and went to the fire house where this Da-Da-type named Marco, who was tall as some trees I know, let Da-Da and me climb around the fire trucks and ring the bell and put on the lights and that was almost as much fun as eating strawberry ice cream.

Then we got into the car, and I guess I passed out cause the next thing I knew, I woke up on Ma-Ma and Da-Da's bed.

Some of the things we did that day I didn't remember till I started writing about it. I'm glad I did cause it's good for a kid to know what his Da-Da does for work, even though it doesn't seem much different than what he does when he's not working