The Party Animal

Did you hear about the 2012 Wardrobe Malfunction? I was a witness to it at the big seminary Super Bowl party. When you crowd 160 young men, dozens of priests and several families with small ones into a room and feed them chili and pigs in a blanket you must be ready for the expected. At these functions I try to keep an eye on everyone and I did a decent job this time: keeping Thomas from pushing the big screen tv from behind it, pulling him down from sliding off the slanted windows, and regularly putting his shoes and socks back on. I did not, however, stop him from dumping popcorn all over the place, kiss/licking another kid or staring at the Madonna halftime show like a cat watching a bird.  Hey, it is hard to keep track of ALL the kids at the same time, especially when the opportunity for adult conversation is just staring you in the face.  At one point, just before half-time while I was turned to someone else, I heard laughter spreading across the room and then clapping and a few hoots and hollers. I turned to see what hilarious commercial was on and instead saw Thomas standing on his seat at the very front of the room, looking down over the crowd - shirtless. He just stood there, taking it all in, smiling and looking like he wanted to enjoy the joke too so he looked at John and said, "all those people waffin' daddy. Why all doze people waffin'?  And that is what you have to love the most about Thomas...he's always, ALWAYS, the life of the party but he doesn't know it. He's a universal favorite but he's completely unaware of his own entertainment value.  It takes a special kind of person to get more laughs then the E-Trade baby and more attention then Madonna on Super Bowl Sunday but for Thomas it's just who he is. Life of the party, baby, life of the party. I fear for his adolescent years...