Wednesday, October 27, 2010

To Punish or Not to Punish?




Ok, so, I have a hypothetical question for you...

Yeah, you're right.

Who am I kidding?

It's not hypothetical at all.

It didn't happen to a friend of mine. It happened to me, today. Well, I found out it happened today. The event happened a while ago. I think I need your help.

Hannah has a beautiful crown she received as a party favor from a friend's birthday party. It was broken by a sibling. We can't remember who. It may have been both. But that's neither here nor there. The point is that it needed repair.

After a twenty minute stint where I fought valiantly to open a previously used (and now sealed) tube of super glue with a 9 month old sitting on my lap, I decided perhaps super glue wasn't the correct tool for the job. I announced my defeat energetically, "Aha! What Mommy needs is the glue gun!" The stupid, faulty tube of super glue is now in the trash.

Immediately, John opened his own trusty tool box (pictured above) and proffered his glue gun. This tool kit is a thing of beauty. It has been useful numerous times over the years. He used Christmas money to purchase it, years ago, when he was still too young to really use it. Hmm, I suppose he's still too young. So it resides in the school room where he is under strict orders to not even open the box unsupervised.

Always pleased to find some way to let John provide assistance and feel useful, I readily agreed that his glue gun was the perfect solution. Immediately, my Mom-dar went off.

"John, where are the glue sticks?"

"Someone must have taken them out of there."

Interesting how Someone is always an available scapegoat... but then again, I do weird stuff I can't always remember, so I may have been the guilty party. John plugged in the gun and offered to fix the crown for me. I wasn't prepared to hand over the reigns just yet (plastic tiara stakes are pretty high). I was already thinking of another project where he could try his hand as using the tool.

The first thing I noticed was that the gun was taking a long time to heat up. Already five minutes had passed and there was no molten pool on the sacrificial piece of junk mail. On closer inspection, I realized the little metal rest was missing. Someone's name was once again invoked.

At last I saw a little purple goo at the tip of the gun. My heartbeat quickened as it recognized foul play while my head still rationalized, I don't remember having purple glue sticks... I inquired as to the origin of the purple goo.





"Oh... I thought you knew about that. Remember, I melted one of my K'nex pieces through there. I'm pretty sure you said it was ok, but you may have been absorbed with the computer or something."

Plausible deniability plus blame shifting. GOOD. Almost as classic as Someone.

So, what do I do, now? Is there a plastic melting, sneaking statute of limitations? We have no idea when it happened. But to me, it happened today. Should I super glue him to his bed? Too bad the tube is permanently sealed.






7 comments:

Roy and Missy Helton said...

Sometimes you just have to let it go. I once knew a girl that told her mom that a friend had peed on her leg at school. Many years later the truth came out and she didn't get punished.

SAHM said...

LOL! I love how your mom and dad save John, Hannah, and Cote with stories of your childhood.
Sometimes you have to laugh it off and with those sweet faces how could you not.

Anonymous said...

I'd say that a serious discussion regarding the potential damage and danger - combined with a temporary removal of said tool kit to a kid free area for a few days - might do the trick. Just my $0.02.

Keith said...

The above was me - supposed to have my name....

MamaHolly said...

Keith, at least you manned up and decided to share who you are. ;)

MamaHolly said...

Dad, yes, I thought of the same incident and almost shared it.

Melanie said...

I'll be interested to hear your decision. And I need a little more info on the pee incident mentioned by Dad. LOL!