Hi, folks. It has been a while since I've posted. Is it a cop-out to say that things have been complicated? 

Most of my time has been spent dealing with Cooper's stuff and the upcoming transition to middle school in September. He's also reaching an age where I'm hesitant to say much of anything about him in case anyone he knows comes across this blog and either says something to him or squirrels the intel away for future use in a negative manner. Growing up is hard enough without your mom telling the world about all of your challenges, right?

Anyway, I was trying to sort through the muck that is my Yahoo email account, and I came across a short story I wrote about four years ago.

The Annoying Child

It was time for Goober’s bath.

“Goober! The timer went ding five minutes ago! Stop dilly-dallying. Bath now!,” his mommy shouted.

She sprayed the tub with Organic Au Naturel Tub Cleaner and was disappointed that, in this case, organic smelled like cow manure. She rinsed out the tub with water and turned on the faucet.

“Goober! I’m going to count to three.”

The house was quiet.

“Goober! Please bring your pajamas to the bathroom. Let’s go!”

More silence.

She picked up the novel she was reading and decided to spend a few minutes enjoying the unexpected serenity.

She put her hand in the water, which was now cold. Oh, well. People who want a warm bath should show up when they’re supposed to, she thought.

Maybe he got lost on the way to the bathroom.

So his mommy looked in the living room. He wasn’t inside the TV. He wasn’t on the sofa or the chair. He hadn’t put himself away in one of the containers of Legos. In fact, he hadn’t cleaned up his Legos at all. But that wasn’t unusual.

She opened the door to his bedroom. He wasn’t hiding under the bed or the sheets. He wasn’t in his underwear drawer. He wasn’t in his closet.

Where was he?

She went into the kitchen. He wasn’t in the refrigerator, the oven or the microwave. 

She pressed the foot pedal that opened the trash can. No Goober. 

The sink only had dirty dishes and the dishwasher was still full of clean dishes that she needed to empty. 

She opened and closed each of the four drawers in the kitchen. No sign of him.

Maybe he was in the linen closet. Nope. Only sheets, towels and toothbrushes. Coat closet? 

Not there either.

Huh.

Maybe he accidentally got picked up by the recycling truck.

His mommy was thirsty so she got a glass of cold water and sat down at the kitchen table.

Her foot touched something that was strange and familiar at the same time. It felt warm and soft. She kicked it gently. She kicked it again, less gently this time. She heard an odd “Mrrrr. Mrrrr. Mrrrr.” sound.

She bent down and peered under the table.

There was Goober. Why hadn’t he answered her before?

He held up a tube of Super Strong Glue and pointed to his lips. 

They were glued shut.

Well, she’d always said she wished he had a mute button.

Chapter 2

After spending $569.34 in emergency medical care to deal with Goober’s glued-shut mouth, his mom was in no mood to listen to him talk about which Lego set he wanted to buy first with his birthday money.

Or which Lego set got the best reviews on Brickset. Or which Lego toys the kids on the bus thought were cool.

Instead, she decided that he would need to earn back all of his Legos, piece by piece. There were four plastic bags full of Lego set instruction manuals, so he must have at least 30 sets. Each set had a minimum of 50 pieces which meant -- now she was giggling -- a lot of good behavior to get those Legos back!

So Goober’s mom told him that his Legos were being removed as a consequence, and he could start earning them back immediately each time he did something expected that demonstrated good behavior:

-- Pee in the toilet (not on or around it).

-- Pick his nose only in private (in his room or in the bathroom).

-- Pound on the door when Mommy or Daddy is in the bathroom ONLY when there is an emergency (defined as something involving blood, fire or a combination of those elements -- not when he had a Lego-related thought or question).

-- Deposit his spit into the bathroom sink (not onto the sidewalk, carpet or his mother’s shirt).

-- Say “No thank you” in a polite voice when he doesn’t want to eat something (rather than scream, “You want me to eat that disgusting slop? What, are you from Mars? No way!”).

-- Control his impulse to say “Smell my butt, butt, butt, butt, butt” or “Somebody farted, farted, farted” in front of anyone, particularly his 2-year-old cousin who liked to repeat everything that Goober said.

-- Talk about anything besides Legos.

There might have been more criteria on the list but Goober had stopped reading it by then.

There was no way he was going to do any of that. This was his house, too! Mom and Dad weren’t in charge. He got a vote, too, and he voted, “No, no and no.” Three no’s, just in case they weren’t listening the first two times.

He wanted his Legos back RIGHT NOW. So, once his parents were asleep, he would sneak into their room and take back all of his Legos. All 16 shoe boxes of them.

But he hadn’t planned on one thing.

The Legos weren’t in his parents’ room.

Chapter 3

The Legos, as it turned out, were in Mr. and Mrs. Smorgashboard’s storage space in the basement. 

Unfortunately it wasn’t as sanitary an environment as his mother had hoped, as pigeons had built nests inside the space, so the lids of the shoe boxes that contained the Legos were covered in dried bird doody that had hardened and couldn’t be scraped off.

Goober was making a solid effort to earn back his Legos. On a good day, he got as many as 55 pieces.

But he was bored. SO bored.

So he decided to be annoying while still being well-behaved. 

That required some thought.

First, he grabbed his mom’s Flip camera and made movies of himself yawning and brushing his teeth. Then he filmed himself poking through a bag of popcorn to identify which pieces were burned. He offered his mom the burned pieces. She thanked him for his generosity and said she would make her own popcorn.

But he was still bored and it was taking forever to earn back his Legos.

One day he was helping his dad with the laundry when he saw Mr. Smorgashboard walk down the hall toward the storage room.

“Dad, I have to go to the bathroom,” he said. 

When his father turned to open the dryer, Goober scurried down the hall to follow Mr. Smorgashboard.

“Mr. Smorgashboard,” Goober called out. “I have an idea!”

Goober ran up to his neighbor and told him that he knew his Legos were taking up a lot of space in the storage unit, and he’d be happy to take the Legos back.

Mr. Smorgashboard, who hadn’t even known that some boy’s Legos were in his storage unit, couldn’t see the harm in liberating space so his wife would have more room for whatever they needed to put into storage.

So after they arrived at his storage unit, and he saw the poop-covered boxes that Goober was talking about, he got out his large cart and they stacked the dirty boxes inside.

When Goober’s mom returned home that night, she tripped over box after box of stinky, pigeon-crusted plastic. She wanted to scream, but instead she smiled.

This was undoubtedly the work of her annoying child.

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