Top Secret!

If you repeat any of this to anyone, I swear to you, I will find you. Not only will I find you, but I will place a clothes pin on your nose and I will fill your mouth with peppermint toothpaste. I will wrap you up in toilet paper and chain you to the bench on your front porch. Yes, I will. You will be an example to others.

Now that we have that straight, how are you today? I'm fine and thank you for asking.

I got home kind of late. This is not unusual and the evidence of my lateness (Wendy's burger wrappers) are throughout the kitchen. Wow, did you feel that guilt? Neither did I.

Anyway, in the midst of the wrappers, there was a tin. A Christmas Tin. How cute. I hate tins. What do you do with them? I digress.

The tin was filled with candy and gum. Hmmm. I flashed back to my call home earlier when Andrew excitedly told me that he was the recipient of 6 packs of gum at the candy exchange at school. That's a lot of gum that I'm sure hoping is sugarless.

(Hold on, I will digress again. You thought I was kidding on Monday when I said all they were doing at school was watching movies and eating candy. Hmmm, see why I was miffed?)

So I see the burgers wrappers and the tin full of candy. Suddenly, Andrew appears. Innocently I say, "Hey, what's with the tin?"

I'm sorry dear reader, but I have no idea how, in words to simulate a nearly 13 year old boy being incredibly defensive and goofy all at the same time. It's like a new born donkey on ice skates eating Twinkies while being filmed on PBS. A vision, is it not?

He freaked out and ran away. All I said was "Hey, what's with the tin?" Does that warrant freaking out? We sent his candy for his exchange person in a zip lock bag from Big Lots. We got back a tin-load of gum and candy, all fancy like with ribbons and stuff. I'm feeling guilty, so clearly I am vectoring this back on to my child. (Is vectoring a word?)

A GIRL GAVE HIM THAT TIN.

A girl. I don't know what to say. Girls are yicky. I'm a girl. How do I reconcile that?

Dear girl, that boy is a precious soul. He's not an old soul because he does dumb things, like leave his socks on the kitchen table, but he's still ours. If you mistreat him, I will find you and put a clothes pin on your nose and....