"Hey, mom." "Hey, Max." " Hi." " Hey." "Just grabbing a quick cup of Joe before I hit the highway." "It's another typical morning when my ex-husband walks in like he lives here." "Remind me, Julian, how much does highway adoption pay?" "Nothin'." "I don't do it for the money." "I do it for the free garbage." "Hey!" "Dish soap works." "I get to beautify the landscape, I get to work with a spear, and I got a letter of commendation from the coroner's office after I found that dead body." "Well, I, for one, am very proud of you, Julian, and I love the orange vest." "This was on the body." "I don't wanna go to soccer!" "Last Tuesday, at 6:20 P.M., my daughter realized she possessed all of the power in our relationship." "I'll only eat my broccoli if we can eat it in the hot tub." "It's almost bedtime, and it is very cold, and I am not in bikini shape right now." "Okay?" "Wow, those are tiny bites." "Thanks." "It's not a compliment." "What's it gonna take to get you go to soccer?" "Mommy's already late for work, sweetie." "I'm already late for my butt!" " Okay." "Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay." " Ah." "I got this, okay?" "Nat, if you promise to go to soccer," "I will let you pick up garbage on the side of the road later, and you can keep all the treasure you find." "Last week, I found an artificial leg." "Give me the clothes." "I'll get her dressed." " Okay." " And here we go." "I got her." "Okay, I got her." "No, you don't!" "Yes, I do!" "No, you don't!" "If I let her stay home from soccer, can you guys watch her while I'm at work?" "Don't give me the face." "You're capitulating to a munchkin terrorist." "What if all terrorists were munchkins?" "Oh, then we wouldn't see it coming, would we?" " Polly, look, you're the boss." " Mm-hmm." "You have to do what you need to do, and the child adapts." "That's how it works." "You just go to work." "Yeah." "She needs to go to soccer, she'll find a way there." "That's what we did with you." "The adults were the stars of the show, and the children were the audience, and you kept coming back 'cause we were a smash hit." "Look, I don't know if you picked up on all this, but you guys doing the whole putting-your-needs-first thing kind of left me with a big black hole inside." " That's so dramatic." "We all have one of those." " Oh, but I love your big black hole." " I do." "I think it makes you mysterious, interesting." " Stephen Hawking would love your black hole." " Makes you fun, unique." " I wish my black hole was intriguing as hers." "Yours is marvelous." "You know what I mean?" "I don't want Natalie to feel emotionally abandoned, okay?" "Kids come first." "So yeah, this might be a little challenging right now, but she is gonna grow up to be a secure, well-adjusted young woman with her own apartment." "That would be great." "All right, well, she's dressed." "They'll be the only team with a princess, but she wouldn't wear anything else." "See?" "We acknowledged her needs, and she's gonna respond by sticking with the plan, which is mommy goes to work, and she goes to soccer." "I asked Natalie to stop touching the coffee beans, and she said that my mama was my butt." "I couldn't think of a good "yo mama" comeback, and now I feel bad about myself." "I am so sorry." "She refused to go to soccer." "She's in a bit of a rebellious phase, and I'm afraid that too much discipline's gonna lead right to a stripper pole." "She's 6." "What does she have to rebel against, corn syrup?" "Why does this girl upset me so much?" "Oh, perfect." "Okay, okay." "Sweetie... ha ha ha ha." "Hey, Scott." "Scott is this super hunky man-nurse" "I've been going out with." "Oh, my God." "This is so perfect 'cause we're both divorced and we both have kids." "Uh-huh." "So if our kids grew up and fell in love, would... that make us brother and sister, or would you become my dad?" "Yeah." "I hate math." "I would love to hang out tomorrow, but Natalie has tap class, and her refusal to get in the car will probably eat up..." "Oh, I don't know..." "Let's say five hours." "Let me call you later." "Bye." "Okay, Polly, I don't mean to be a narc, but I think she should be wearing gloves." "Look, mommy, I'm cheese!" "Mm." "Scott asked you out, and you said no?" "Yes." "Natalie's really testing me right now." "I think it sends the wrong message to bail on her." "She's my daughter." "I put her first." "I wonder, though, if she needs you as much as you think she does, or if you need her to need you as much as..." "Whatever matches the beginning of what I was saying." "You just like to think that because it makes you feel better about putting all of your needs before mine when I was little." "Okay, sweetie, we gotta get to our commedia dell'arte workshop." "So just take the 2 to the a or the B to the 1." "Well, that's not running express right now." "Just take the 2 all the way downtown." "Love you!" " Okay." " Cool." "To be fair, we put our needs before everybody." "But you like Scott, and you deserve to make love to him again." "Nobody "makes love" anymore." "We make love." "We make a lot." "Well, we're..." "Like, a lot." "We make love." "Well, things will never get grosser than that." "Can't Julian take her?" "Julian underestimated how hard it is to maintain 2 Miles of highway." "Have a good lunch, douchebag!" "Ha ha." "Oh, yeah." "Laugh it up, Jesus fish!" "That is not how you get into heaven." "Well, you are our child, and we put you first." "So why don't you let us take care of Natalie, and you go out with Scott?" "Yep, didn't see that coming, did ya?" " Nope." " Well, you know, we're supposed to go to that wine and jazz festival." "How about Polly comes first on a day where we have nothing scheduled?" "No, this is our family priority." "Well, when we got married, we vowed that wine and jazz would always be our priority." "Okay, you got it, kid." "Thank you, guys." "I appreciate you sacrificing your plans so that I can..." "Oh, what the hell." "Make love." "Ah." "Felt good to say it, right?" "That's my girl." "It does." "You know what?" "I'm gonna call Scott." "Actually, scratch that." "I'm just gonna go over there tomorrow and surprise him with a little flirty move" "I saw last night on Cinema Television Latino." " Cha-cha-cha." "Cha-cha..." " Okay." "But we're really going to the wine and jazz festival." "No." "We are going someplace appropriate for Natalie, like, well... playground or a library or..." "No, no, no, no." " We're gonna go to the festival." " Okay." "And we are gonna educate Natalie about the proper relationship between adult and child." "Oh, Polly, hey." "Hay is for horses, papi." "Uh, you know, my kids..." "Hmm." "Uh..." "I can see them." "Yeah." "Did they see me?" "Yeah." "We did." "Yes." "Hi." "See?" "This is how we do's it." "We're adults enjoying our adult day, right?" "And the child walks behind us, happy to be out of the house." "When we get home and Natalie slips into her soccer uniform with no protest at all, we're gonna be heroes, Max." "Heroes, like Bono." "She hasn't spoken in a while, though." "Should we be concerned?" "Absolutely not." "If she's hungry or thirsty, she'll ask." "I'm hungry." " See?" "Boom." " Mm." "Okay, you have to try this." "It's caviar with goat cheese on a rosemary crisp." "That looks like bird poop." "I wanna leave." "This place is boring." "This most certainly is not boring." "There's dozens of tastings, and there's a discussion on home brining, and the skip Dickerson trio is about to start a set in 20 minutes." " Ugh!" " Well, you are really missing out." "The goat!" "I wanna pet the goat!" "Oh, no, honey." "That's just a display goat." "We don't pet strange goats." "Wow, she can really throw herself around." "No, I don't remember Polly acting out like that." "No, that's because we were the ones that acted out." "Listen, we are the bigger and smarter people." "That's why we have all the cars and the money." "We are not going to indulge you, miss." "Goat, goat, goat, goat!" "Wow." "Poor thing." "Husband just left her." "You know what?" "Put some wine on a napkin." "I am so sorry that I exposed myself to your sons." "I really hope it's the last time that that happens." "I saw your boobs." "Your boobs are boobs." "Well put, Jackson." "Yeah." "Gonna be a doctor, that one." "Thank you so much for grabbing these clothes from your neighbor." "Sure." "Although I feel like she has not gone shopping since 1996." "Yeah, well, it's cool, 'cause I'm still sort of" " picturing you in that black..." " Outfit." "I wish I knew you were coming." "Should we just rain check this thing?" "Natalie is with my parents, and I did shave my legs all the way up instead of just to the knees." "Ooh." "Well, in that case, yeah, I guess we can still go out if you don't mind the boys tagging along." "Yeah, no, of course not." "I mean, you didn't know" " you were gonna have them, and kids come first." " Yeah." "Now what are we gonna do?" "We gonna lock 'em in the closet while you and I go roll around on the bed for a while?" "Is that on the table?" "I..." "I'm kidding." "Oh." "Is it?" "Joking... again." "Um, yeah." "Let's go..." "Let's go get some food." "Okay, great." "Uh, is fast food okay?" "Yeah, of course." "What do they like?" "Boob burgers!" "Oh, boob burgers." "Well, you know what?" "I had boobs for breakfast, so as long as they have salads..." "Goatee." "I just got that." "You know, I once dated a guy who looked exactly like that goat." "Yeah." "Still owes me 5,000 bucks." "Excuse me, goat." "Do you know a guy named Salvador?" "Oh, God, I am so bored." "Hey, honey." "Why are you talking to the goat?" "I'm just trying to be social." "Yeah?" "Well, listen to this." "While you were trying to make friends," "I had a flash of genius." "We tie this balloon to Natalie's wrist." "That way, we can see where she is from anywhere." "If it starts moving at an adult speed, we know something's wrong." "Well, then what do we do?" "We scream, run, and attack..." "Our favorite thing." "That's a plan." "Sweetheart, you're having a fun time here, right?" " Yeah." " Awesome." "Well, you know, grandma and grandpa..." "We're gonna have fun right over there." "It's just a couple booths down." "You're gonna wear this balloon, and we'll be watching, okay?" "And, hey, how about some cracker money for you and Mr. Goat, huh?" "Look at that." "Yeah." "How does that sound to you?" "Everybody wins." "Okay." "Oh, my God." "Yeah, shall we take back the night?" "It's 2:00 in the afternoon." "These transition lenses..." "They transition too early." "I can never tell what time it is." " Look at her." " Hmm?" "Made a friend." "Wow." "Nothing makes fast food burgers taste better than the smell of gasoline." "And farts." "What?" "Oh, really, Jackson?" "That's what we're doing now?" "I'm so sorry." "But, you know, pick your battles, right?" "I wonder what it'd be like if we actually picked one." "It's kind of exciting to think about." "You know, I think that if I acknowledge their needs, they would respond by not throwing fries in my hair." "Come on." "This one had ketchup on it." "Is this how people see me with my kid?" "These little psychos were out of control, and the more I saw Scott with his kids, the more I saw my future with Natalie." "Soon we'd be eating burgers in the car, drowning in our own farts." "Train!" "Train!" "Train!" "Train!" "Train!" "Train!" "Train!" "Train!" "What?" "There's this little kiddie train over in the park." "We ate on it one time, and now we always have to eat our burgers on it." "I feel like we've been really accommodating already." "I don't, you know, wanna be the bad guy, but I really don't feel like going on a kiddie train after eating all those burgers." "Why did we buy them inflatable hammers?" "Why do they make inflatable hammers?" "All right, guys, not in the ear, okay?" "Seriously." "You know, my parents think adults run the show, and kids should adapt." "When I was Jackson's age," "I was taking the actual train by myself." "My kids can't even go on a kiddie train by themselves." "Is it possible my parents were right?" "I mean, maybe Natalie is acting crazy because I indulge her every whim." "Maybe she could stand to hear "no" once in a while." "Tyler, he said not in the ear." "Come on, buddy." "Look at us." "Look at all of us." "What are we doing?" "None of us are happy on this train." "And, you, man by yourself, you are way too happy, okay?" "You're right." "She's right." "And you know what?" "I am popping this hammer." "Yeah, you pop those hammers." "Kids, this is the end of the line." "Mr. Conductor!" "Stop this train!" "I thought that would take a second." "What are these made of, Kevlar?" "Oh, I love this place." "Mm-hmm." "Food, wine, our new biracial friends." "Oh, is that what they are?" " Yeah." " I thought it was my transition lenses again." "And while we're dancing, I've got an eye on Natalie." "Well, I've got an eye on Natalie." "No, she..." "What?" ""Silva breast cancer group."" "We lost Natalie." "Oh." "Okay, so what are we thinking?" "Uh, my parents told me about a wine and jazz festival." "Doesn't that sound great?" "Yeah, that sounds actually really great." "That sounds boring." "Thank you for offering up your opinion there, Jackson, but despite your disinterest, guess what?" "We're going anyway." "I like the new us." "I'm carsick." "Oh, yeah?" "Crack a window, huh?" "Nice." "If you make us go, we're just gonna make it totally not fun for you." "Impossible." "What I'm about to do is in protest." "Whoa." "Hey." "Stop the car." "Okay." "So..." "What happens next?" "Put 'em in the trunk?" "It's all happening so fast." "Should we teach them a lesson on good citizenship?" "Yes." "Well, guys, congratulations." "You don't have to go to the jazz festival." "Yeah!" "Later!" "Thanks for helping, guys." "Best part of this job..." "They give you a weapon." "But with great power comes great responsibili..." "My foot, my foot, my foot, my foot, my foot, my foot." "They're gonna be safe with him, right?" "Well, safer than they would be with me right now." "I'm joking." "I mean, I know it may seem a little crazy to leave your kids on the side of the road with a guy with a beard, but he is one of the good guys with a beard." "This is kind of thrilling." "Right?" "I feel like we're the parents in an Indy movie or something." "Let's go rob a bank." "Ooh, yes." "Natalie?" "Okay, Natalie?" "Natalie?" " Natalie?" " Honey?" " Natalie?" " Natalie?" "Oh." "Hey." "Natalie?" "Whoa." "Mom, stranger!" "Okay, sorry, fella." "Have you seen her?" "Natalie?" " Natalie?" " Hmm?" "Oh." " Oh, boy." " No go." "Okay." "Natalie." " Natalie?" " Natalie?" " Honey?" " Natalie?" " Oh!" " Natalie!" "Oh, no!" "Hey, shh." "Shh." "Listen to me." "Yeah." "This is what we're gonna do." "Okay." " We're gonna plant ourselves at the entrance." " Yes." "And we're just gonna stand there." "We're gonna watch everyone who walks by" " until this place empties out." " Okay." "Oh..." "Oh, God." "There's Polly." "All right, we'll have to make up a huge lie like we did about that dog." " No, no, no, no." "Polly." "Polly." "There." " No?" "Oh, well, that's good." "She's having some adult time." "Elaine, Elaine." "What?" "I can feel two different things at the same time!" "Okay, you can." "All right." "Now that..." "See, that's not your wine." "Put it down, darling." " Go." " Follow me." " Go." " Natalie?" "She was with the goats." "Oh, yeah." "Perfect." "See?" "That's what I'm talking about." " Bam." " Cranberry." "Oh, my God, Max, what have we done?" "No, we're gonna find her." "We're gonna keep looking for her." "We're gonna find her, Elaine." "I'm never gonna forgive myself." "Never." "No, honey, don't say that." "W-we... we will..." "We were just dancing." "Okay." "Grandma, I'm thirsty." "Ohh!" "Ohh!" " Ha ha!" " Ohh!" "Look at this." "We are never letting this child out of our sight again." "Oh, are you okay, honey?" "Look at that face." "What a face." " Ohh." " It's okay, grandma." "I had fun." " I can't wait to tell mommy about it." " Yeah." " Oh." " Oh." "Hey, y-y-you know what?" "We are so happy that you had a great adventure, but let's play a fun game where you didn't tell mommy about your adventure." "How's that sound?" " That's not a game." "That's just not saying something." " No." "Well, it's kinda like a game." "What if part of the game is us buying you anything you want?" "Oh, I like that, grandma." "Now that sounds fun." "Yeah." "Can you buy me a goat?" "Well, within reason, honey." "I think I'd rather tell mom about my adventure." "$220, $240, $260." " Okay." " Include delivery, or do I have to strap it to the hood?" "How long does a goat live?" "I don't know, Elaine." "Hi, mommy!" "Oh!" "What are you guys doing here?" "What are we doing here?" "What in the world?" "And what is Natalie doing here?" "What?" "Answer your mommy, honey." "And why does she have everything that is for sale here?" "And a goat!" "And a goat." " Grandma and grandpa hooked me up." " Great." "Are these the same parents we were just talking about?" "No, no." "I have never met these." "What are you guys doing?" "You're totally spoiling her." "You said to indulge her so she'd get her own apartment." "And that really resonated with us." "It's resonating." "Well, I was wrong, okay?" "Young lady, you are not having pretzels and ice cream before dinner, okay?" "And mommy's gonna spend some time with her friend Scott, so grandma and grandpa are gonna take you home, give you a bath, and put you to bed." "No, no, no, no." "No, I'm staying at the fair." "Oh, God, there it is." "Oh." "You can scream and whine all you want..." "But that is what is happening!" " Aah!" "Oh." " Okay?" " Why do we have to go?" " Please." "Quit while you're ahead." "No!" "I don't wanna go home." "Okay, fine." " Hey." " Hi." "Hey." "Long day, huh?" "Yeah, but it was our pleasure." "Isn't that right, Max?" "Oh, so pleasurable, and you know, it's easy to understand why you would give in to a kid that adorable." "Yeah, I mean, when you see that smile, you can't say no." "Right?" "Your lips refuse." "Hmm." "She told me that you lost her." "What has this world come to that you can't bribe a kid with a goat?" "Look, there's a middle ground between kids running the show and them ending up on a milk carton." "Okay, we're looking to find that sweet spot." "And we are so sorry." "Yes." "No idea." "We would prostate ourselves on the ground in sorrow" " if we hadn't hurt our backs searching." " Oh, it hurts." "It's okay." "I know that you didn't mean to do it, and when Natalie said she liked getting lost because it made her feel like a big girl, it reminded me of something." "Excuse me, sweetheart." "Do you know where the fish market is?" "Easy." "You're gonna need a transfer at 4th 'cause the train stops running there at night." "Go three stops and walk north." "Can't miss it." "Oh, you're an angel." "Thank you." "So that's one great thing about the way you guys raised me." "I knew how to take care of myself, and... maybe she could use a little of that, too." "Okay." "God, we're smart, you know?" "All right, so what you're saying is we... we did a good job." "We don't get enough credit." " Onward and upward." "Thank you." " Mm-hmm." "Anyway, I forgive you." "Good night." "Oh, and thank you for that, by the way." "It does that a lot." "You know they're nocturnal," " so y-your turn to feed the goat." " Oh, come on." "Good night, goat." "Morning." "Yeah." "I don't wanna ring any alarm bells, but, um," "I notice that the goat is gone." "Before I start concocting a cover story for Natalie, any idea where it is?" "Max took care of it." "Please tell me I'm not eating the goat." "Don't worry about it." "That's right." "I got me a goat!" "G-o-t-e!" "All mine." "Terrence, you missed a spot."