A week or so ago was my good friend Mr. Sunshine’s birthday. He had a birthday party on his birthday, and I was invited.

When I arrived at the party, I saw a huge inflated air slide on a grassy area across the street from his house. I thought the neighbors were having a party as well.

Then I looked on Mr. Sunshine’s lawn. There was also an inflatable slide and bounce center as well. I thought that that must be his.

Then Harry (a friend of mine) ran from the bounce center across the street to the slide.

“Hey, Brad!” He called as he climbed the big stairs next to the slide.

They were both Mr. Sunshine’s, I realized as I jumped out of the car and ran for the slide.

It wasn’t my fault, but it had begun to rain outside. We were having lots of fun in the slippery rain, falling over in the bounce center and ricocheting off the walls of the slide, but we went in after Mr. Sunshine’s mom came out.

Next to me, two girls were talking as I walked in.

“See my pants?” asked one, pointing to her black pants.

“Yeah,” said the other.

“They look black to you, right?” asked the first girl.

“Yeah,” said the other, nonchalantly.

“Well, they’re supposed to be blue.”

I laughed as I walked off as the other girl screeched, “You’re THAT wet?”

Inside, I played on the computer for a bit, shouted as I ran out in the rain looking for my shoes, brought them back in along with a soaking body, and watched The Simpson’s Movie a little, before declaring it too anti-religious.

Then came the opening of the presents.

I had brought him a set of Geomags, which was a magnetic building toy, so I didn’t need to worry about not having a present.

Some one next to me said, “I got Mr. Sunshine twenty bucks.”

Someone else replied, “I got him something ten billion times better!”

“What did you get?” asked the first.

“Twenty-one bucks.”

Someone else butted in. He was fishing for his wallet. He finally pulled out two dollars and added it to his twenty dollars. “Now I got twenty-two!”

Mr. Sunshine was standing next to them, listening and nodding his head.

“Come on, now, let the conversation continue!” I thought, and told Mr. Sunshine. He smiled and nodded again.

All in all, it was a great party, and Mr. Sunshine got a great deal of money, gift cards, and oodles of stuff.

But mysteriously, after an hour of opening the presents, I went back to play with the Geomags, but two thirds of the set went missing. I never found out where they went…