When I first envisioned writing this post, I imagined that it would turn out a lot like that classic 80's movie, Ferris Bueller's Day Off. I'd ride around all day in my friend's father's convertible, visiting museums and possibly becoming a central figure in a huge parade. It didn't take much of my actual day transpiring before I realized that being a 32-year-old father is not quite the same as being the main character in a John Hughes's coming of age movie...
My day did start with a little John Hughes-like tension. Comfortably wavering in bed between blissful sleep and the uncomfortable state known as "wakefulness" which has marred so many of my otherwise pleasant days, a frenzied commotion began to assert itself into my limited consciousness, and before I was even fully aware of what was happening, wakefulness had won out, and sleep was no more than a faint memory. It seems my son was on the verge of missing the bus.
I heard my son frantically running around upstairs, asking for lunch money, of which my wife apparently had none. I myself was rather short of any coinage or currency, so my first words of the morning were along the lines of suggesting to my son that he use his own money for lunch and that we would reimburse him at some later time, preferably one in which he was not in danger of missing his ride to school. This offer must have seemed reasonable enough to him, because he was soon running downstairs and out the door. As he was running downstairs I heard a sound coming from outside which resembled greatly the sound that a bus makes as it drives off without my son.
Sure enough, my son soon reentered the house to declare that he had missed the bus. I finally found myself with enough motivation to actually get out of bed, knowing that since today was my day off, I would be the one tasked with taking Caleb to school. As I began to dress the incriminations, rebuttals and recriminations began. Why had Caleb missed the bus? What was he doing instead of getting ready? From what I could gather he had had 40 minutes to get dressed, during which time he maintained he only dressed and watched a pair of his socks dry on a chair. My wife believed that there was more involved, and that he was withholding key information, information that quite possibly involved his interactions with electronic equipment, not to exclude a Gameboy, a certain downstairs television, or a PC version of his favorite video game, Zoo Tycoon. I personally fealt that the Zoo Tycoon angle was a much more likely scenario than the 40 minutes of watching socks dry on a chair, no matter how much I like to try to believe my son.
In my son's defense, the sock-drying story does have at least some basis in reality. A day earlier my wife had informed me that Caleb was out of clean white clothes. I had loaded the washer with whites that night, but had failed to move said whites into the dryer. So it's completely possible that my son fealt he had to let a pair of his socks dry on a chair. A better solution may have been to throw the same socks into the dryer for 15-20 minutes, but my son is only 10 years old, so cut him some slack here. His story only breaks down when he begins to maintain that while his socks were drying, he spent 40 minutes doing nothing other than dressing and watching them dry.
I tried to ascertain the truth of what happened through logic, a poor tactic to use on a 10-year-old under any circumstance. I went so far as to offer to recreate the experience tomorrow, watching him while he dressed and watched socks dry for forty minutes. I tried to point out the ridiculousness of his claims. All of my efforts were for naught however, and my son was still maintaing his story as I drove him to school.
What are those victories that you win that aren't really winning? Anyone? Anyone? A Pyrrhic victory. That is what I eventually won that morning as I pulled into his school's parking lot. I had told Caleb that if he wouldn't tell me what really happened this morning I was going to punish him. All I wanted was for him to tell the truth about what he did that made him late for the bus. I asked him time and time again and he maintained his story time and time again. Caleb is nothing if not committed to his stories. He'd make a good mobster. Finally, as we pulled into the parking lot of his school, I offered him one last chance. Admit that he did more than watch socks dry and get dressed or he would be punished. His response?
"Well, I guess I'll lie and say I was watching television."
Game, set, match. He's a wily one this child of mine. I still have no idea what he spent his time on this morning. I'll probably never know.
So that was the start of my big day off. After the excitement of the morning I took it down a couple of notches by fixing myself a bowl of oatmeal and watching President Bush address the United Nations, while I typed up this blog entry. What adventures await me for the rest of my day? Only time will tell. I might do more laundry. Or even fix myself a second cup of tea. I'm crazy like that. All I know is you'd be crazy to not check back and see...
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