Shirtless

A friend of mine reminded me that – if I am going to blog – I need to change the names of my children - inside of my writing - because creepy dudes might lure them away by saying their names and mentioning familiar information that my kids might think only a friend of mom would know.  I have so many things to say about this.  I mean, first of all, I am going to do it; of course, I will change their names.  We are going to do that right here and now.  But, before I give them new handles, I just have to speak to this topic of someone taking away my children.  Most of my kids are hard to spot – they are inside children.  They don’t come out much.  That’s how kids today are. 

But, we DO have ONE.  Boy…do we have one RIPE for the pickin.

Hardly a day goes by that my youngest son doesn't disappear altogether.  (I just typed his name and had to go back and erase it and call him “youngest son.”  Phew.  Abduction adverted.)  No, seriously, youngest son is like prime abduction material.  Unaccompanied, he angrily wanders the sidewalk in front of our house. He’s the bare-chested one, built like a tank.  If he is out there, I have infuriated him, and he is looking for a new home.  I likely have angered him by unearthing and disbanding his arsenal-of-the-day – or should we call it his weapons du jour. 

But, youngest son has me all wrong because I don’t set out looking for the hoard.  The “others” find it.  It is like a daily egg hunt for them.  It is an activity.  They bring me things:  dad’s drill; cans of WD-40; 4-foot planks of floor trim…you know…little things that go missing, and they say, “______ had this.” (I cannot write his name… remember… sickos out there) 

And I, quite likely on the couch “folding clothes” (code for sitting down)…I will say, “Show me where,” and I follow the sibling-of-youngest-son to the bunker, freshly dug out, and I am all impressed, and I say, “YES!  My paring knife,” and then I can go finally make some potato salad. 

I am usually quite unmoved, except for the momentary joy that accompanies the finding of something I had been digging for in the kitchen.  You know…that one thing you cannot find will make you nuts - that one thing gone-missing makes you believe that you have a paranormal being that comes into your house and takes random stuff to mess with you.

But, youngest son gets all ticked when you find his stash.  He comes storming around the bend with his fists pointed straight down and his arms stiff as boards, and he growls through clenched teeth (wow…am I stealing this from “Where the Wild Things Are”), and then he raises his fists in the air and howls, “I can never have anything.” 

When, what he is really saying is, “You are preventing me from becoming an ax murderer.”

We all stare at him.  We are each thinking our own response.  Mine is usually, “Dang it, your shorts don’t fit already…I just bought those last WEEK.”

But, other children are having other thoughts: 

My oldest daughter is likely thinking, “If there is anything of mine in there, I am going to hold you down and beat you with it.  I hate living here.  I hate you.  I hate the weather.  I hate the way mom drives.  This is so embarrassing… I’ll never be a pop star….. AHAHAHAHAHAHAaaaaa,” then she stomps off down the hall.

We’ll call her Peeved.  No seriously…that is her new handle, “Peeved.”

My oldest son is likely staring wide-eyed at youngest son, who is still growling and stiff-fisted, and my oldest son is thinking, “This is awesome.  I wish I was filming this.  I’d get 10,000 hits.”

We’ll call him Tuber, as in “You-tube,” which is helping me raise my kids.

My middle child – my effervescent little pixie smack-dab in the middle of the five kids – is thinking in a very Eeyore voice, “Poor ________.  He is just a little boy.  Let him have the fully-charged power drill.”

We’ll call her Pixie.

And then there is my precious, faultless, blameless, adorable, sleeping little infant, and all I can call her is Baby Child…because…um…well, that is what we call her, for realsies – Baby Child.

So, there you have it:  Peeved, Tuber, Pixie and Baby Child. 

But…what about this youngest son?

My youngest son gets stared down by the lot of us.  He stares back at each of us, lunging forward, pivoting to change the direction of the lasers that shoot out of his eyeballs, deep into our eyes, piercing our souls with his fierceness, and – suddenly (but like totally on cue) - he sprints out the front door.

THIS is where the creepy child abductor comes in.

Creepy child abductor is driving down the street in a white beat up van with no windows (of course that is what he is driving, people…all other vehicles contain churchgoers), and he sees my youngest son, storming down the street, fists tightened, bare-chested, teeth clenched, muttering something about a drill and a can of grease and a small knife that peels potatoes perfectly without wasting too much of the actual potato..., and Creepy Child Abductor (I just capitalized the letters in his handle – this makes him legit…brings him to life), and CCA (shortened it) sees shirtless boy.  Shirtless boy sees the van and remembers everything his mother has told him about windowless white vans with lots of rust on them.  Shirtless boy grabs nearest boulder and raises it above his head with his pectorals flexing and his teeth still clenched, and the shirtless boy charges the van, straight out of a scene in Braveheart…he is roaring a thunderous combination of testosterone and black cherry Kool-Aid, and shirtless boy is thinking, “I can kick your butt and not get in trouble for it,” and CCA has at least a kindergarten IQ, and he thinks to himself,

“There’s got to be easier kids on the next street….”

And shirtless (youngest son’s handle) is safe to storm the neighborhood another day.

And Shirtless, calmer now, having exerted himself by lifting giant rocks and all, walks back to the house, shaking his head,

“Geesh.  Now, I've got to go get another pile of weapons together.  They just have NO appreciation for the work I do out here.”