Whenever I bake muffins, I tend to find discarded paper wrappers everywhere except in the trash. So, the other day, after retrieving at least the hundredth wadded wrapper from the kitchen countertop, I launched into one of those end-of-my-rope lectures.
“But, Mom,” Younger protested, his eyes wide. Leaning towards me, he lowered his voice and revealed, “It’s the ninjas. They’re stealthy, Mom. They blend into the walls and the furniture. They move so fast you can’t see them with the naked eye. And they force me to throw those wrappers on the countertop. And,” he added for good measure, “they hook the Pepsi up to my veins, just in case you start wondering where the Pepsi went.”
My eyebrows lifted towards my hairline, one fist finding my hip. “Are you telling me ninjas made you do it?”
He nodded. “Exactly. Ninjas.”
So, now, whenever I start squawking about candy wrappers in the pockets of their jeans or a suddenly empty bag of cookies, a voice hollers, “The ninjas, Mom. They’re stealthy.”
Oh, those stealthy, stealthy ninjas. No telling what they might do next.
Well, except wash a dish or bake a cake or scrub a toilet.
Apparently the only one with those superpowers is Mom.
The Grown-Up 