The Big Con Job

This past weekend, Michael’s Mommy and I went to the extreme heights of social relations by actually entertaining actual friends in our home. And by friends I mean people other than immediate or incidental family members. The festivities would include hors d’oeuvres, dinner, Hawaiian music and tropical drinks out on our incredibly amazing patio; the one festooned with random cheerful lights and burgeoning wisteria boughs.

This was an all but unprecedented event in Michael’s home, as we’ve been drowning in care of a small child for four years now with scarcely a chance to surface for a gulp of air. But I was determined to have guests, and to make good use of our back yard come hell or high water. Or small boy.

Like a champ, I’d managed to pick the hottest day of the year to hold our little soiree. It was over 101 by the time our friends were to show up. It’s not supposed to ever get that hot in Portland.

From lack of planning time, I hadn’t put up the backyard speakers at all, but instead set them on the hot tub at the last minute and hastily strung the wires overhead, behind the market umbrella, through the door and into the back of the entertainment center. Custom! Ramshackle!

Our friends showed up on the dot of 5 pm, spectacularly punctual (you might have guessed one of them is an engineer, and you’d be right). For the purposes of this post, I shall give them the names Steve and Eydie (honest… those were the first fictitious names that popped into my head).

All was going well. Michael was being a ham, running around in his usual “Jack Russell Terrier Puppy On Crack” fashion, spewing his nonsensical syllables (bdickle bdickle bdickle! Bootyadeeoo yaaaaaaaa!) to no one in particular while I prepared coconut shrimp and his mom set out the crudités and ranch dressing.

Michael’s random scramblings soon devolved into interrupting requests of the new victims visitors to visit his room or to play tubes or to put balls down the hole or to watch SpongeBob.

But we adults continued on undaunted with our chatter, my wife yakking with Eydie and I with Steve while I prepared dinner.

At one point, my Daddy Sense began tingling. Shifting my attention away briefly from Steve’s words, my ears strained to listen to the sounds of Michael playing, wherever that might be.

And there was no sound. As needs no mention, this is the sign of trouble.

“Sorry, Steve. Hold that thought, please. I have to go check on Michael.”

We checked the living room: no Michael.

“Michael!” no answer. “Michael, where are you?” I shouted. Still no answer.

We went to the sliding glass door, where my wife was deep in conversation with Eydie, complete with sweeping hand gestures and all.

I poked my head out. “I’m sorry to interrupt,” I began, “but have either of you seen Michael?”

“He was in the living room,” my wife said.

“Hmmm. Okay,” I said, and shut the door. She returned to her conversation with no backward glance. This left me with the distinct impression that she assumed, by nature of his being in the general scope of “inside the house”, that Michael was under my care and therefore ultimately my responsibility for such occurrences as, say, disappearing entirely.

“Where is he?” Steve asked. I tried not to display my rocketing panic.

“Well, I’m sure he’s in the house. If he’d left by the front door, it would be ajar,” I reasoned. My deductive skills are honed to a razor’s edge, they are. “Michael? You come out here, now!” I shouted.

Still no sound.

Standing in the entryway, I looked around for any suspicious activity or misplaced items that might give him away.

Looking upstairs, I noticed that his bedroom door was closed. I knew it wasn’t closed before.

We hurried up the stairs and opened his door.

The room was entirely dark, but in the dimness I noticed that his bed covers were pulled up over a large lump. A trying very hard to hold still sort of lump.

I pulled back the cover. There he was, lying on his tummy with his hands tucked underneath him, face turned to the wall.

“Michael? Are you going to bed already?”

He nodded quickly.

My first thought was: “Sweet! He saved me the trouble! And it’s no wonder, since he hadn’t had a nap.”

Then the part of my brain in which Michael’s Mommy resides spoke up. “Wait a second! He hasn’t had his medication or his dinner. He’ll need a pullup at least, even if he’s just going to take a nap,” the voice said.

The voice was right. Even within my own brain, Michael’s Mommy handles most of the brain cells.

“Well, you’ll at least need a pullup,” I said, and pulled the covers back farther.

It was then that I heard the faint strains of electronic music. And noticed the strange bluish glow emanating from under his midsection.

“Wait a minute, what have you got there?” I asked, reaching out and rolling him over slightly.

Clutched firmly in his thieving little fingers was his sister’s GameBoy, which she had carelessly left on her nightstand in her own room, with her door carelessly left shut. The sneaky little bugger thought he could snitch his sister’s stuff and play with it, and daddy would never suspect that his whole “Boy am I tired!” routine was just a ruse. Right, kid. Your older sisters already tried to get that kind of fraud to fly by me ten years ago. It didn’t work then, and it ain’t working now.

“Michael, you are so busted,” I said.

I then proceeded to give him the lecture about not taking things that don’t belong to him, not going into his sister’s room, and listening to his parents. Judging by his reaction to my ranting I could tell my words were bouncing harmlessly off his skull. Such is parenting. You blast as much as you can hoping some of it will find it’s way inside and go to seed one day.

He didn’t get a nap, but he did get escorted downstairs to be subjected to a renewed level of supervision.

So the next time Michael’s Mommy and I have guests over, you can bet we’re going to have a sitter as well. Or I’m going to need to invest in a cage and a lot more duct tape.