Playground Pat

Soaking up every last bit of nice weather we can before winter rears its ugly head, Finny and I take a daily trip to the park for some strolling, swinging and climbing on the jungle gym.


Yesterday, during one of our climbs, we came across a three-year-old we will endearlingly refer to as Pat. I have seen Pat at the park before with his/her daddy, but am challenged at every meeting to determine whether Pat is a little boy or little girl, and I am a little frustrated by the ambiguity of the whole situation.


This child, boy or girl, is beautiful. Soft, baby face, big blue eyes, long eyelashes, and long, gorgeious hair. Because of Pat's pretty face and long tresses, one might initially assume that Pat is a girl, but I fear that that may be the wrong assumption as Pat's daddy also has long hair, and it could very well be a case of like father, like son.


The other piece of confusion is that Pat is always mysteriously dressed in unisex clothing. I keep looking for some kind of clue to gender identification like a large dump truck on a T-shirt or some kind of "Daddy's Little Princess" logo, but I get nothing time and again. Just jeans and a brown jacket with slip-on canvas shoes.


In an attempt to get to the bottom of this mystery, I observed Pat at play and tried to eavesdrop on the conversation Pat was having with other children and parents. Once I heard another mom refer to Pat as she, saying to her son, "Dave, it looks like she wants to slide down the slide with you." I watched to see if Pat's dad would correct her, but noticed he hadn't heard her.


When Pat came over to join Finny at the steering wheel, I gently probed, "Well, hello, what's your name?" This tactic is courtesy of Dana Carvey on SNL when he asked Pat the name of his/her partner, to which Pat replied, "Terry."


My little friend Pat at the playground replied, "Grassi." Now, either Grassi is Pat's true name and it is some kind of symbolic, ethnic or family name which is meant to throw me off his/her trail or Grassi can't speak clearly or I can't hear clearly. Whatever the case may be, I got nothing from that line of questioning.

Despite my attempts at deciphering this playground puzzle, I left frustrated and floundering.

After discussing is with David, he said, "So, are you saying this little boy is supposed to wear short hair or this little girl is supposed to wear pink just so that you aren't put in an awkward situation on the playground?"

Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying.

Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against long hair on men. We just recently watched Braveheart and Mel Gibson was a sight of hunky hunkiness with his long, frizzy hair. Even with tiny braids and a kilt, he was, hands down, the manliest man on the planet.

And I'm totally cool with women who wear jeans and brown coats. I'm one of them, in fact.

But when it comes to little kiddos, it'd be helpful to have a few gender indicators--hair bows, skirts, dump trucks, trains. Something. I'm just trying to be polite. Cut a sister a break.