“Deidre and I Were Left Shaking Our Heads and Desperately Linking Pinkies.”

“Deidre and I Were Left Shaking Our Heads and Desperately Linking Pinkies.”

Food Fight. Did you think of John Belushi? I would have too until the events of a rainy, gray Saturday that called for curling up in front of the fire with hot chocolate.

Or curling up in front of the computer with a steaming cup of coffee if there’s work to do.

My children played over at our neighbors, Jud and Deidre Knight. I forbade them to go in the house because Deidre just returned from a weeklong business trip. I prefer calm on reentry after such things. They were to play over here or outside in the Knights’ new spectacular Swiss Family Robinson tree house. 

 All was quiet. I worked. My husband slept in front of the television.

Then sobbing came from over my left shoulder. I turned to see my six year old wearing nothing but Pirates of the Caribbean swim trunks and goop of every color and consistency. 

 My child had been slimed.

 “What happened?”

Sob, sob and sob. I grabbed him; he was freezing. I flashbacked to a summer job at a waterslide park when a woman became overcome with nausea in the wave pool. Except in my episode, I was not wearing size 6 red trunks plastered with Jack Sparrow, but a standard issue royal blue one-piece plastered with half-digested chunks of the woman’s lunch.

Who had thrown up on my little Joe? And what was he doing outside in 40 degree weather wearing nothing but a bathing suit?

“Kate was frowing food!” 

“JOHN!”  I took Joe by the hand to the bathtub.

 After getting the freezing, slimed ghostbusting pirate soaking in warm bath, I stormed over to the Knights. Going inside, I called for my daughter. She timidly appeared with wet hair and wearing someone’s dry clothes. Pools of terry cloth towels lay limp across the kitchen floor. 

“Where is Ms. Deidre?” I was told that she was upstairs asleep which made perfect sense after her week in New York.

“What were you thinking?” I asked, screaming and whispering at the same time trying not to wake Deidre who thought her children were playing at my house rather than raiding her kitchen to have a food fight in 40 degree rain in their backyard.

 When Deidre and I spoke, it turned out she never had been asleep; she was upstairs working all the while.

I thought I knew my child. She would never brazenly disobey my order not to go into the neighbor’s house, much less open up 10 cans of soup and throw it all over her brother and friends. Deidre and I were left shaking our heads and linking pinkies swearing that we would never let our daughters become teenagers. For teenagers have access to car keys and teenage bodies and minds that can dream up much more than hairdos full of clam chowder.

Trust is a funny thing. It’s meted out little by little from a spool clutched tightly in your hand. Then the object attached to this trust vaults over boundaries of decent behavior you didn’t even consider because there was no tug on the line that never left your side. What’s a parent to do?

Well, other than being thankful to live in a house with 100 years of paint sealing bedroom windows tight.