A Case of Premeditated Plumbing

I'm not Mother Theresa, but I am proud to say that last night I did not beat, strangle, or kill my youngest child, and you might say, "That's nothing to be proud of!" but let me tell you the whole story: yesterday morning, our kitchen ceiling started dripping and I discovered that the "S" pipe in our upstairs bathroom was leaking, so we mopped up the water (and Ian helped!) and considered ourselves lucky that the leak was in plain view and then we instructed the kids not to use that sink-- and it's not even the main upstairs bathroom, it's the bedroom bathroom, so they don't use that sink anyway, and Catherine wisely put a towel over it to remind us not to use it-- now flash to yesterday evening, we're getting ready to go to the school carnival and Alex is drawing on the computer quietly and Ian is roaming around and suddenly the ceiling starts dripping lots of water, way more water than in the morning and I get very upset-- where could it be from?-- but I go upstairs and our bedroom door is open and the bathroom door is open-- and it is a difficult door to open-- and the towel is pulled aside and THE TAP IS RUNNING! . . . because Ian, bored and annoyed because Alex was playing quietly on his own, went upstairs, went into our room, removed the towel, and turned the water on and then came downstairs, didn't say a thing, and just waited to see what would happen . . . and by this time Catherine had left for the carnival (she was a volunteer) and so I had to deal with this alone and I was having serious rage issues and Ian admitted that it was premeditated, that he knew what the result would be and that he was in serious trouble, and-- after I told him that he had "betrayed the family," he was sent to his room and missed the carnival and lost all of his reward marbles and got a stern talking to and I may have kicked a chair, but like I said, there was no beating or strangling of the child, and I'm pretty proud of that, considering he nearly ruined our kitchen ceiling ON PURPOSE . . . just to see what would happen, and I'm getting angry all over again as I write this sentence . . . deep breaths, deep breaths.

12 comments:

Al DePantsdowno said...

Two words: Family counseling.

rob said...

or juvenile hall

Dave said...

i can look back at this and almost laugh now, but when i told the story to a bunch of teachers in the office they went BERSERK-- people were genuinely angry at the intent he showed, and thinking back, it was right after i told him to stop bugging alex, he was whacking him with a pom-pom. i can almost laugh about it now (except for the water damage to the ceiling . . .)

zman said...

When I was about 3 or 4 my dad had one of those black fuzzy Russian hats (I don't know why, I guess they're reall warm) and I flushed it down the toilet out of boredom. His house is pretty old and at the time he had a septic system, not sewers, and apparently fuzzy Russian hats don't do good things to old pipes leading to septic tanks. He was very angry. He did not strangle me, but if I had reward marbles he would have taken them away.

rob said...

little boys flummox me. my daughters are 24x7 drama, but they haven't yet shown a propensity for property damage.

jaltman said...

This may have to go on that site..."Shit my kids ruin."

By the way, there is a reason some species eat their young...

Al DePantsdowno said...

Try to remember....He's so smart . . . not book smart, and he's compassionate too.

Dave said...

thanks al, i actually forgot that during my tirade (where I actually think i told him that he "betrayed the family by maliciously inflicting damage upon our beautiful house"-- i'm sure that made a lot fo sense to him)

is that a real website? i am going to google it.

Dave said...

it IS a real site!

Clarence said...

Are "reward marbles" not testicles?

Dave said...

no. then dyfus would be involved.

Dave said...

http://tiny.cc/s1ung

yikes.

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