Goof Off

 It will be a quiet day (for me, anyway) and I'm grateful for that. William and Grandpa are headed to a family birthday party which begins at one. I've got an appointment to get a hair cut at 2. It sounds selfish probably, but the advance notice for the party was very short. I haven't had a hair cut since the end of January, and I've been looking very forward to this. William has filled out the card and I'm making a dish to pass. 

While they are gone, I'm headed back over to the rental to 'edge' around the ceilings, baseboards and windows in the dining room. Tim will come along later and paint the rest using a roller. He's fast and efficient at that. I'm messy. A lot of spatter. It takes me twice as long, probably because I'm trying so hard not to make a mess.

So, me and my trusty bottle of Goof-Off will head over for a leisurely afternoon of painting while listening to Mumford and Sons radio on Pandora. Goof-Off is for those little paint speckles. I just saturate a bit of rag with some. The house has hardwood floors and any paint spatters just wipe right up, leaving no trace at all that you'd screwed up. 

I have often thought that I need a product like that for life in general, which can get pretty damn messy, can't it? 

Speaking of screw ups, William is in the hot seat. On Friday nights, he has the luxury of staying up late. He is allowed to watch television, or work on the game he is designing, or play on his tablet. Last week, Tim was very angry that he'd stayed up until 2 AM. He was tired for the day, and grumpy. Before we went to bed last night, we had a firm discussion about it. While we left his bedtime open, we did say that he was expected to be in bed before midnight. No more all nighters. 

He understood, he answered. 'That sure wasn't going to happen again...'

I woke up at 3 and headed down the hall to the bathroom. Much to my surprise, William's bedroom door was still open. I looked and sure enough, he was not in bed. He was still downstairs! He got a stern scolding and sent to bed. 

This morning, I woke up at 8. Tim had left early to go turkey hunting, but when he got back, he and William had plans to mow two lawns. William was counting on them to take his VR money up to $170+. He's getting close to that VR. Knowing that the plans were to get the lawns done before the birthday party, I headed to William's room to get him up. 

I tried to talk to him about the previous night and how upset I was about that. 

"I lost track of time," he answered in a reasonable voice.  

I pointed out that Grandpa and I had gone to bed before 10. He is surrounded by chiming key wound clocks and a cuckoo. It is kind of hard not to be aware of the time in this house. I pointed out that he'd played for 5 hours and even in the worst known case of obliviousness, it wasn't plausible to me that he'd lost track of the time for five hours. I said that in my opinion, at some point during the night, he became aware of the time, but simply chose to ignore it. 

He insisted that he had no idea of the time. 

I said, "You know, you have a choice whether to take responsibility for your own actions or to cover it all up. You've lost your tablet for the day." 

He was outraged. He went into a small rant, saying, among other things, "It's not MY fault. Nobody told me what time to go to bed!" 

That plainly made me mad. While we did not give him a bedtime, we did make it clear we expected him to be upstairs before midnight. He was shifting the blame for his behavior to us. I said, "Well, you've lost the tablet for tomorrow as well. When you're ready to accept responsibility for your poor choices, come talk to me." I went out to make my coffee. 

He followed me out to the kitchen, and he was in a fine fettle then.  I said, "If you don't stop, I swear to Jesus that you're going to lose the tablet for a week." 

Immediate silence. He stomped away in a temper. 

His grandfather returned from turkey hunting, and sent him off to get ready to do lawnmowing. We had a quiet discussion about what had happened. William was back in the room in an instant, listening intently, protesting. Tim is not a shouter. He rarely raises his voice. He yelled, "I've heard enough of this! You don't have your tablet for the weekend, and You. Do. Not. Want. To. Keep. Complaining!" 

William went silent immediately. He continued getting ready to go do his jobs. He has been quite helpful this morning. I'll bet he is wishing that he had a bottle of 'Goof Off' to fix this screw up. 

The manhunt continues, with surprisingly little information being given out. I don't know what that means, exactly. Do the police believe that he's still in our area? Personally, I believe that he's long gone, but William's school was in lockdown yesterday. They did not tell the kids what was going on. They just rounded them all up and they spent the afternoon in the cafeteria playing games and watching movies. 

I also saw that the school district was not comfortable sending children home. Parent pick up was a requirement and all parents would be required to show ID. Unfortunately, I did not find this out until Saturday morning. Usually there is a telephone notification that advises these things. There is nothing on the school website. William walked home, same as usual, in the regular herd of walkers. 

What does that mean? Do they think he's no longer in the area? 

Dunno. This is crazy. Social media is blowing up with rumors. No official word on any of it. 

Wherever he is, though, you can bet that he is wishing he had a bottle of Goof-Off.