True Crime Story - Mom Style

During the week, my family is a clan of sloths.  It doesn’t matter if they go to bed at 8 pm or 11 pm, nobody wants to get up.  It’s a huge challenge to get everyone up, get them dressed, teeth brushed, hair combed and bags ready for school.  At least one is whining, one or two is crying, and still yet another is complaining that someone “stole” their hair band.  Let’s stop right there. 
There’s a good subject to land on.

Really?  A hair band?  I mean seriously, who would do that?  Who would actually break into this house, traverse the pile of laundry that seems to stretch like a slinky down the hallway, and navigate through the toys that are a tell-tale sign that nothing has been done on a weekend, just to go into a bedroom to steal a 5-for-a-buck hair band? 

If a thief were to manage to dodge a random shoe or pair of jeans that someone neglected to pick up, he/she would still run the risk of an extreme injury by stepping on a Littlest Pet Shop hard plastic dog, or an outside Dora scooter that for some reason has become part of the living room landscape.  If they are brave enough to do all of that, not only should they be recommended for military Special Forces, they freakin’ deserve all of the 5-for-a-buck hair bands they find along the way. 

I decide that it had to have been an inside job.

The hair band issue is just an example of how a teenager can rock the house with utter disgust of everyone living there.  When the angry words of an authoritative 16-year-old hit your ears, you get that sudden impression that you have to stop everything to look for that hair band right then, even with the suspicion that it is likely lost on the floor of her room anyway.  The intensity she gives the dilemma, with added stomping and slamming things around for effect, makes your first response, the immediate need to drag a confession out of someone in the house. 

Well good luck with that in this humble abode. 

I watch a lot of crime shows, which frankly scares my husband a little bit, so I’m guessing I can use the techniques I’ve gleaned from good acting, to get to the bottom of things fast.  Not so.  Christina, 7, blamed Leah, 5, and Leah blamed her dad (clearly David needs a hair band, to keep those 6 hairs on his head in place).  I got nowhere with interrogations, as these are some hardened criminals for 5 and 7 years old. 

Case in Point:  In the middle of the hair band chaos, someone took one can of hairspray out of the bathroom and sprayed it all over the house.  I walked in and like a strong room deodorizer; this massive aromatic sensation filled my eyes, my nostrils and the entire house with the vivid fragrance of AquaNet Extra Hold. 

I found the empty evidence can.  I bagged it and tagged it, but before I could make it outside, I happened upon another piece of evidence.  A second can of hairspray, I believe it was Suave, had also been used to perpetrate an additional crime.  I began questioning the locals, Christina and Leah.  There is no honor among these thieves. 

Those two wouldn’t make it one day in the Big House.  These cute little Snitchy McTattles couldn’t keep the finger off each other.  Tryin' to cut deals right and left.  All it took was the the threat that daddy would not be allowed to take them to the store for Rice Crispy treats, and they were droppin’ each other’s names like crazy. 

They threw each other under the bus for more than an hour.  I know I could’ve smelled rubber burn from how many times the tires went over each of them - well I would have, had my sense of smell not been seared by the AquaNet-Suave mixture that was still wafting in the air. 

The best answer I ever got was, “She did it!” Then of course the corresponding, “Nuh-uh, she did it!”  They were both acquitted for lack of hard evidence in either incident.  To this day however, I believe there was an original crime perpetrated by one child, then a copy-cat crime committed by the other. 

After you go through something like Spray Gate here, you’d think I would give up asking these children to just tell the truth when these things happen.  I still have hope because they are young, that I will be able to break them somehow, so I continue to fight the good fight. 

Whatever happened to the hair band, you may ask?  Apparently while intense interrogations were going on with the little ones, unbeknownst to me, Emily found the hair band in question and, might I add, with no fanfare or communication to the rest of the family unit. 

Between you and me, I’m thinking Emily quite enjoyed listening to the process as she was adorning her long locks with her newly found accessory that I’m positive was discovered under the mounds of teenage stuff on her floor, just as I suspected to begin with.

I work a tough beat.