“Blame Someone Else Day” is always the first Friday the 13th day of the year. For the longest time, I dedicated that special-yet-odd holiday to our oldest son. He took “blame someone else” day to new levels during his early teen years.
I remember lying to my parents, my teachers, to anyone who would listen…always blaming someone or something else for my own misgivings. I’m not sure ‘compulsive’ is the word I would choose, but lying was just as easy as telling the truth for some unexplainable reason. It’s come back to haunt me.
One evening, several years ago, Jim and I told Chris to do his math homework while we were out to dinner. We told him to write out every algebraic step, and use the calculator only to check his work. We came home to check his work, and the majority of the problems were wrong. The step-by-step process we required was nowhere to be found, but Christopher swore he used the calculator only to check his work.
“Well, the calculator must have been wrong!” he exclaimed, completely serious.
Here is where I need the super ability to turn off Sarcastic Woman and just be “Mom.” Unfortunately, Sarcastic Woman is a part of me. She’s not going away anytime soon, and at this particular moment in time she kicked into overdrive.
“The calculator was wrong?” I asked.
I waited a full three seconds before starting to laugh. My husband, loyal and faithful to Sarcastic Woman, jumped right in.
“But officer, I swear, the tree just jumped out in front of me!”
We roared. Tears streamed down our faces. I’m not kidding. Poor Christopher just sat there. He could not comprehend the scene before him. Oh, sure, he knew we were having a chuckle at his expense, but the whole tree jumping out in front of me thing was completely over his head.
“Can I help it if I put in the right numbers and the calculator was wrong?” he asked with hysterical sincerity. So he hung himself. He used the calculator to do the work and still missed the problem.
Two days after the whole calculator incident our young man woke up to find his robe missing. His weekday morning routine ran like a well-oiled machine. He woke up, put on his robe, and came downstairs for breakfast. There used to be two robes…but Michael isn’t a robe kind of guy, so there was just one, and Chris is the only person in the family who wore the navy blue robe. Jim asked him every morning to hang up the robe after he got dressed.
“Yes, sir,” Christopher answered, but the robe was on the floor each night when Jim came home. So soon after the homework incident, Jim tucked it away in the laundry room closet and told Chris we threw it away (and yes, the irony of telling the truth is not lost on me here).
“What!? Why?”
“Because I’m tired of asking you to hang it up every day.”
“Michael must have left it on my floor.”
I’m telling you there wasn’t even time for him to think about that particular sentence. He just opened his mouth and out it flew.
Again, Jim and I laughed until our sides ached. I guess Christopher knew as soon as he said it that it must have been the dumbest thing he could have possibly uttered. He just put his head down on the kitchen table. Just as quickly his head popped up.
“You guys must have come into my room in the middle of the night and pulled it out of my closet and left it on the floor,” he said.
“Oh, that’s right, honey,” I said between laughter and gasping for air. “I have nothing better to do, and heaven knows I don’t need sleep these days. So guess what? I planned the whole thing with your dad. He rigged that calculator to screw you over, and I agreed to set my alarm for 2:48 this morning so I could sneak into your room, find your robe, take it off the hanger and throw it on the floor. You caught us.”
His head hit the kitchen table this time. “Thwop!”
“Just promise me one thing,” I asked, after about three minutes of non-stop laughter. “When your child starts this with you and you finally recognize it as the crud you used to pull on us, call me,” I said.
“What are you talking about?”
“The sins of the father, Chris,” I said. “Your kid, son or daughter, between the ages of 10 and 15, will lie to your face on a daily basis. He or she will blame the calculator for math errors, and he or she will tell you that you must have snuck into his or her room to rip clothing from a hanger. When they do, I want you to remember this very minute of this very day, and I want you to call me.”
“Fine,” he said. “Why should I call you?”
“To apologize for thinking that a box of rocks has more brains than your mother.”
He looked at me like I was crazy, and went upstairs to get ready for school. I picked up the phone.
“What are you doing?” my husband asked. “It’s 6:30 in the morning.”
“It’s 7:30 in Florida,” I said, still giggling. “I have to call my mother and apologize.”