Reason 421.
Every afternoon, just as I am lovingly enfolding my two youngest (Carter, 9; Rosalind, 6) into my bounteous motherly arms, feeding them hand-squeezed hand-pasteurized milk from our cow and letting them feast on hot homemade cookies, congratulating them on triumphing against another day of school...
*DING DONG*
Here come the Wonder Twins.
The Wonder Twins are not actual twins, but brothers, one of whom is in Carter's class at school, but they are indeed wondrous -
Every day, they make their parents disappear.
They're basically nice kids (aside from the occasional begging - "Can I keep your Nerf gun?" - and menacing my other children - "If you don't do what Carter wants, I'll beat you up").
But they show up at 3:05 every afternoon, they play with Carter for awhile, and then I get tired of them or am ready to make dinner or take one of my children somewhere.
I excuse them to leave. "You are welcome to go home now, Wonder Twins."
"We can't," they say in precise, practiced, dead-eyed unison. "No one is home at our house."
I'm sorry, what?
"We can't go home. Our parents aren't home and the house is all locked up and we can't get inside."
I believed them the first time. The first time, they were lying. "Their father was home," their embarrassed mother griped to me on her way home from work. "They just wanted to stay and play with Carter."
Last night... they were not lying.
And you know how Wednesday night is. It's nutty. We have a Cub Scout and an 11-year-old Scout and two kids in Mutual. I'm in the Young Women program (necessitating my also being at Mutual) and my husband is the 11-year-old Scout leader.
So, at 5:00 yesterday evening, when the Wonder Twins were invited to vacate and they put forth their little "dilemma," I found myself walking the fine line between resentment for being considered the neighborhood drop-in day care (And why not? I have five children, I must LOVE yours), irritation at being inconvenienced, and murderous rage.
It is a very fine line.
"Get in the car, Wonder Twins," I nicely thundered at them. "We'll just see if no one is home at your house."
"But..."
"JUST GET IN THE CAR. Carter, you come with us."
And, true to their word (for once), no one was at home.
Now feeling extremely crappy for cranking at these children for a situation FAR beyond their control, I stopped my desperate doorbell-ringing and screen door-rattling, went back to the car, and drove them to another neighbor's house: the neighbor they apparently use as backup. "Our dad said we should go here if we can't stay at your house."
These two little boys exited my car and went to the neighbor's door. It was obvious they were not expected (and probably not very welcome, either).
I drove home, livid. Who makes their elementary school-age children live like this, wandering around trying to find a warm dry spot, like stray cats?
Their dad called me. "Wifey? My wife said you called."
Oh, so she's sick of my frantic phone calls and foists them on you now.
"So what's up?" he continued.
Well, Disappearing Dad, your days of abusing your neighbors' kindness and using our house as your own personal orphanage are hopefully numbered. Let's try this out.
"Your boys came over to play today and when it was time to go home, the house was locked and no one was home, so I took them to Trevor's house."
He said the first of several amazingly bad things:
1. "O-kay..." he spoke haltingly, as if my depositing his offspring at a house other than my own was really putting him out. "I - THINK - I - know where Trevor's house is."
You have to be kidding me. Your kids consider this one of their homes away from home, and you THINK you know which house it is?
2. "They TOLD me you said it was OK."
Hello? Remember last time? Your kids are liars... at least, that's what your wife told me. Now I'm starting to wonder.
3. "They're over at your house so much, I was wondering what's been going on over there!"
It's called "put on your shoes and walk over and meet your neighbors." We're indoctrinating them, to hate stupid parenting techniques. They just LOVE our Kool-Aid.
4. "The boys like coming to your house so much, I figure if they're there, they'll be gone for two or three hours, so I can go run errands."
So I do. I leave my third- and second-grade babies to the mercy of virtual strangers. I leave, and I don't tell the boys where I'm going or when I'll be back, I don't leave a door unlocked for them in case they come home, I don't give them a key and teach them how to use it. I DEFINITELY don't tell my boys' new unpaid babysitter where I'm going (let alone ASK her if it's all right with her), and I make sure I don't leave my cell phone number with her. That's none of her business.
I just leave, lock up the house like it's Fort Knox, point the boys in the neighbors' direction, and hope the neighbors pick up my "crappy father" slack.
In all seriousness... my husband and I are of differing opinions about this guy - I think he's just stupid and has entitlement issues. Hubby suspects drugs or another woman ("Why can't he run errands while they're at school?"). I told Hubby, when I went to the front door of their house, I half-expected to see Dad lying on the living room floor, half-dressed, in a pool of his own puke. How else to explain for this lack of parental feeling, if not something chemical-related?
I seriously considered calling Child Protective Services and reporting two abandoned children and a set of neglectful parents. They're probably onto me now, though.
And that's why I'm going to H311.