By Toni L. Martin
Of all the animals, the boy is the most unmanageable.
~Plato
I lowered the car window to breathe in the sweet smells of the warm, autumn evening.
Of all the animals, the boy is the most unmanageable.
~Plato
I lowered the car window to breathe in the sweet smells of the warm, autumn evening.
"What is that?" I gasped, glancing to my left at my husband driving.
Larry's nose was wrinkled in disgust. Turning around in my seat, I looked at our neighbors. Linda's hand tightly covered her nose and mouth. As we pulled into the driveway, the smell grew stronger.
"Close the window!" barked Linda's husband from the back seat.
As I got out of the car, the intensity of the smell made my eyes water. Light blazed in every window of the house. The garage door was up, my husband's household furnishings stacked high against every wall on display for the whole world to see. We had three preteen children from our previous marriages, and we had recently combined two households with the overflow relegated to the garage.
Horrified, the neighbors, my husband and I stood in the driveway, unable to take a step farther as we realized the offending odor was coming from inside the garage. Wave after wave assaulted our senses as the late October breeze carried the odor out of the garage.
"Skunk!" Larry cried out.
At that moment, the front door burst open, and the sitter came running down the steps.
"Don't ever call me again!"
"Wait! I haven't paid you," I gasped, as the sitter began backing down the drive, her car door still flapping.
"Oh, you'll pay," she snarled through her teeth. "You'll pay for my clothes, too."
Then she was gone.
I noticed my daughter standing in the doorway to the house, her shoulders heaving with the silent sobs she was trying so hard to control.
"They didn't hurt it, did they?"
"Where are the boys?" Larry growled as he pushed past her into the house. "Jim! Ted! Get out here now!"
After all the crying, arguing, and finger-pointing culminated in a reasonable grounding sentence for the kids, it turned out I was as much to blame for the incident as anyone.
Earlier that day, I had taken the kids and our neighbor's son to the First Blood matinee in town. None of them liked having a sitter, so I was extracting their cooperation by offering up the outing as a bribe.
Sylvester Stallone as Rambo was a strong role model for teen and preteen males in the eighties, but what I didn't realize was the extent of my boys' imaginations. With bandanas tied around their foreheads, T-shirt sleeves trimmed at the shoulders, and armed with lawn care implements, they spent the evening fantasizing and role-playing John Rambo.
It was all quite innocent until a wayward skunk happened to wander into the garage. Down went the garage door. The boys proceeded to chase the skunk, brandishing a rake, hoe, and pitchfork. With bad timing — really bad timing, actually — the sitter entered the garage to break it up. That's when their adversary exacted his revenge.
The skunk ran frantically around the garage, spraying the furniture stored there as it searched for a way out. When the boys and the sitter tried to reach the opener to raise the garage door, the skunk saw them as even more of a threat and focused his disastrous attention on them. Too late, they managed to raise the door, and the skunk bolted into the woods across the street.
Over the next three weeks, boxes and furniture lined both sides of the driveway. The offensive items sat marinating in a variety of solutions, from tomato juice, white vinegar, and bleach to a concoction of hydrogen peroxide, baking soda, and liquid dish soap. All were guaranteed to effectively reduce the lingering odor.
Each day, as I replenished the solutions, my neighbor Linda would come over from next door, shake her head, and give me advice on raising preteen boys. A proven authority on childrearing, she felt her skills were validated by the fact that Tom, her son, had been home studying the night First Blood was being played out in my garage.
"This isn't working," she commented with a frown one day. "I can still smell the odor inside my house, and it seems to be getting stronger."
With no other option available, I had to take steps to keep the horrendous smell from infiltrating the neighborhood, especially my neighbor's home. What couldn't be effectively neutralized finally made its way to the curb on trash day.
The following morning, I stopped next door with a peace offering of baked goods to apologize for the inconvenience.
Linda accepted the brownies, took a bite, and then sheepishly confessed, "The smell wasn't coming from your driveway after all. Seems Tom wasn't home studying. He was at your house and got caught in the skunk's crossfire. He was afraid to tell me he had snuck out until I found the foul clothes balled up in the back of his closet."
What can I say? Sometimes, being a parent really stinks.
Larry's nose was wrinkled in disgust. Turning around in my seat, I looked at our neighbors. Linda's hand tightly covered her nose and mouth. As we pulled into the driveway, the smell grew stronger.
"Close the window!" barked Linda's husband from the back seat.
As I got out of the car, the intensity of the smell made my eyes water. Light blazed in every window of the house. The garage door was up, my husband's household furnishings stacked high against every wall on display for the whole world to see. We had three preteen children from our previous marriages, and we had recently combined two households with the overflow relegated to the garage.
Horrified, the neighbors, my husband and I stood in the driveway, unable to take a step farther as we realized the offending odor was coming from inside the garage. Wave after wave assaulted our senses as the late October breeze carried the odor out of the garage.
"Skunk!" Larry cried out.
At that moment, the front door burst open, and the sitter came running down the steps.
"Don't ever call me again!"
"Wait! I haven't paid you," I gasped, as the sitter began backing down the drive, her car door still flapping.
"Oh, you'll pay," she snarled through her teeth. "You'll pay for my clothes, too."
Then she was gone.
I noticed my daughter standing in the doorway to the house, her shoulders heaving with the silent sobs she was trying so hard to control.
"They didn't hurt it, did they?"
"Where are the boys?" Larry growled as he pushed past her into the house. "Jim! Ted! Get out here now!"
After all the crying, arguing, and finger-pointing culminated in a reasonable grounding sentence for the kids, it turned out I was as much to blame for the incident as anyone.
Earlier that day, I had taken the kids and our neighbor's son to the First Blood matinee in town. None of them liked having a sitter, so I was extracting their cooperation by offering up the outing as a bribe.
Sylvester Stallone as Rambo was a strong role model for teen and preteen males in the eighties, but what I didn't realize was the extent of my boys' imaginations. With bandanas tied around their foreheads, T-shirt sleeves trimmed at the shoulders, and armed with lawn care implements, they spent the evening fantasizing and role-playing John Rambo.
It was all quite innocent until a wayward skunk happened to wander into the garage. Down went the garage door. The boys proceeded to chase the skunk, brandishing a rake, hoe, and pitchfork. With bad timing — really bad timing, actually — the sitter entered the garage to break it up. That's when their adversary exacted his revenge.
The skunk ran frantically around the garage, spraying the furniture stored there as it searched for a way out. When the boys and the sitter tried to reach the opener to raise the garage door, the skunk saw them as even more of a threat and focused his disastrous attention on them. Too late, they managed to raise the door, and the skunk bolted into the woods across the street.
Over the next three weeks, boxes and furniture lined both sides of the driveway. The offensive items sat marinating in a variety of solutions, from tomato juice, white vinegar, and bleach to a concoction of hydrogen peroxide, baking soda, and liquid dish soap. All were guaranteed to effectively reduce the lingering odor.
Each day, as I replenished the solutions, my neighbor Linda would come over from next door, shake her head, and give me advice on raising preteen boys. A proven authority on childrearing, she felt her skills were validated by the fact that Tom, her son, had been home studying the night First Blood was being played out in my garage.
"This isn't working," she commented with a frown one day. "I can still smell the odor inside my house, and it seems to be getting stronger."
With no other option available, I had to take steps to keep the horrendous smell from infiltrating the neighborhood, especially my neighbor's home. What couldn't be effectively neutralized finally made its way to the curb on trash day.
The following morning, I stopped next door with a peace offering of baked goods to apologize for the inconvenience.
Linda accepted the brownies, took a bite, and then sheepishly confessed, "The smell wasn't coming from your driveway after all. Seems Tom wasn't home studying. He was at your house and got caught in the skunk's crossfire. He was afraid to tell me he had snuck out until I found the foul clothes balled up in the back of his closet."
What can I say? Sometimes, being a parent really stinks.
http://www.chickensoup.com
Комментариев нет:
Отправить комментарий