Messing With Your Parents: Nobody Does It Better Than Andrew

How to Mess With Your Parents--by Andrew Olsen

Chapter One--Keys: Parents Think They Really Need Them. Especially for things like cars and homes.

A couple of years ago, Andrew developed a fun habit of carrying our keys out to the backyard and not returning with them. This resulted in an entire set of keys being relegated to the black hole of "never to be found again" land. Since they included a car key with one of those microchips that are expensive to replace, we now have only one key to our Ford Focus. That's right-ONLY ONE. Pretty dumb, right? A couple of months ago, the key came up missing. After an agonizing two day search, Andrew came up to Josh and handed him the keys. Did he have them hidden all that time or did he just happen to find them? It's one of those Andrew mysteries. So, when the key went AWOL again and an hours-long search did nothing to locate them, we immediately zoomed in on Andrew. "Andrew, do you know where the car keys are?"

So, Andrew leads Josh to the toilet and points to the open bowl. Josh to Andrew, "You FLUSHED the keys down the toilet??!!" Andrew to Josh, "..flushed keys down toilet."

We freaked, fretted, put a hex on Ford and their stupid Microchip keys, went dizzy from the rise in our blood pressure and borrowed 2 snakes from my father. The snakes were slowly lowered into the bowl and swished around with great fanfare, but no keys were retrieved. In fact, nothing was retrieved. Thank goodness, because I didn't want to touch anything I had retrieved from the deepest abyss of the toilet. Anyhoo, I went to work the next day in my dad's borrowed car, trying to figure out how to get the insurance company to cover a loaner car that we needed due to our own sheer stupidity. I got to work and reached into my pocket and there were the car keys. That's right. They had been in my own coat pocket the whole time. Why didn't I check there in the first place? I thought I hadn't worn the coat since last fall. I forgot it was cold enough that I wore it at the end of last week. Have I called Ford yet to get a copy of the one and only key? Of course not. I better do it soon, though. It's just a matter of time before my son tries to send them down the plumber's river. And we can't say he didn't warn us.

Chapter Two--Shopping Cart Bowling: Extra Points if Your Mom Leaves her Mind in the Store

Andrew made up a new game. When at the store with your mother, aim the shopping cart at a nearby display and push with all your might. Extra points for hitting targets. He's very good at this new game; however, as his mother, I have proven to be just as good at noticing when he is in aiming mode and stopping him before the big push. I had him at the local Hannaford a couple of weeks ago and thought I could stop him from his little game at every turn. I was doing quite well until the very end when he sent the cart at least twenty feet down an aisle into a cardboard display of ping pong balls. That's right, ping pong balls. I hate to take away from the image, but I got lucky and they were packaged rather than loose. Still, Andrew was not happy with me when I made him pick up dozens of packages of ping pong balls to put the display back in order. He was in almost-tantrum mode by the time everything was put back, so I hurried and made our purchases and left.

As a mom, it's moments like this when you lose your mind. You forget you had the cell phone out of your purse and in the cart because your cell phone has become your watch and you were watching the time to make sure you made it home for your other child's bus. Then, halfway home, you remember where the cell phone is but you don't have time to run back and get it because, well, at this point, you need to hurry home, put away the groceries and make the bus. So, you go home, the groceries are shoved in places, maybe the right ones, maybe not. You grab the cordless phone and call the store on your way down the driveway to the bus. Yes, customer service has the phone, yes, they'll hold it for your husband to pick up on his way home from work. Now, you are at the bottom of the driveway with the house phone in your hand. The only phone you have in your house because you get your phone service through the cable company, which is cheaper, but it only gives you one line. You are about to carry the phone to the bus stop, but you feel foolish going to the bus stop with a cordless phone in your hand. You spot the mailbox and there it is. The moment of truth, when you convince yourself you can stick the phone in the mailbox and you will actually remember to get it on the way back into the house. Oh, you remember the phone, alright...........you remember an hour later when it starts ringing and you are out the door tearing down the driveway toward the mailbox. And who is to blame? Why, Andrew, of course. He was supposed to take my cell phone OUT of the cart before he shoved it at the ping pong balls.