let that sink in for a moment …

Feeling rested, I peeked at the clock: 4:55 a.m., shortly after prancing thoughts hopped on the above stepping stone (the duty thing =). Don’t ask how, by now I have no idea. It’s what tangents do.

it happened … well, over 25 years ago

My son has said things that have engendered all | every kind of emotion in me. This one was glee + awe. From him, I learned the meaning of RIP (!as an adult!). Mind you: my first language is Spanish, and I did not speak English until high school. It happened as he was having difficulty winning a paper game against me.

We were on a train from NYC, where I worked for a few years. I never, ever, let him win at anything. When he won, it was on his own merit. Sometimes I would hint if he was about to make a big mistake or bad move, but didn’t tell him why or where.

Anywho, that day he drew a tombstone with the RIP on the now-infamous paper, with musical notes and the words: 🎼ding dong the witch is dead! Think they were all caps =) He was fuming. I still have the paper! It is quite funny.

Anyway, (digressed) sometime in his early teens, my son was about to go somewhere with his Boy Scouts troop on a Saturday morning. I was in the living room waiting for him to leave so a friend and I could go out. We were chatting on the couch. He went in the kitchen.

“Did you find the garage door opener?” I asked.
“No.” He opened the refrigerator.
“You’re not going anywhere until you find it.”
“They’re on their way here to pick me up!!!”
“Then you’ll have to tell them why you can’t go.”
— He stomped and ran around the house looking for the garage door opener that had been lost for two days. It was his to get in if we weren’t home (bigger and clunkier than a key that could go missing …).
“Could you help me look?”
“No, I didn’t lose it.”
— Off he went again. Then returned and looked at me with serious eyes.
“It is your genetic duty to help me.”
— I caught my friend’s intake of breath as she stifled a laugh, though not a smile.
“My what?!” I had to say something just so I wouldn’t laugh.
“It is your genetic duty as a Mom!”

THIS IS REAL. TOTALLY real.

and just like a mom, right? to ask for something at the most inopportune moment!

“There is only one genetic duty I know of, and you’re not going to like it.”
— He stormed off and, a few minutes later, brought the garage door opener for me to see, then left it on the kitchen table.
“Now put it in your backpack where it belongs.” As he picked it up, I added, “Was that so hard? You having to find it made you think, didn’t it?”

i knew he would find it if going on a troop outing depended on it