Dirt for Daddy

I have mentioned my daughter before. She is 7 going on 35 and I have become the dumbest person on the planet. I’m confused by this because my mother didn’t become a complete idiot until I was 14 and she somehow managed to snap out of it when I turned 19. I’m sure you would share my concern if your child thought that while she was at school, you just wandered around, naked, drooling and babbling about what time People’s Court came on.

Now, I order for this to make sense, I need to tell you that although I did have a whirlwind romance with her father – everyone (except Juvenile Court) knows he is in OHIO. Thus you could ascertain that we are no longer married. I am engaged to a WONDERFUL man and due to be married in October. She adores him and he has taken on the role of “Daddy” (told you he was wonderful). Anyway, since I have promised not to use real names (to protect the innocent – me) I will refer to him as “Daddy” for the purpose of this forum.

My child has a friend that lives two doors down. They are always together, unless they are in trouble, which is often. They just do stupid stuff all the time like climbing on the roof of the neighbors car and spraying it with Fabreeze because Lord knows you don’t want the roof of your car to smell bad. Anyway, because of this kind of antics, Daddy calls them “Crack Head 1” and “Crack Head 2” or just “The Crack Heads” when they are together. I used to think that this was awful until I began to witness some of their behavior first hand. I’m beginning to believe that massive amounts of drugs are being smuggled in via the school lunches – these kids are nuts!

A few weekends ago, Daddy was going to wash his truck. He has a beautiful, black Ram 1500 that is his pride and joy. The Crack Heads asked if they could help. After the Fabreeze incident, he thought maybe their car washing skills weren’t really up to par and declined their offer. He spent the next two hours, washing, drying, waxing and detailing every inch of his truck. The next morning he goes out to get the paper and low and behold there is dirt SMEARED all over the hood of his truck. Let’s just say that the color of his entire head changed to a beautiful crimson hue. He called Crack Head 1 outside and asked her what was all over his truck. God love her, she stood right there with the most puzzled look on her face and asked, “what on Earth happened?”. I must tell you that Daddy has the patience of Job but this almost sent him over the edge. He said, “You are telling me that you don’t know what that is or how it got on my truck?” to which she replied that Crack Head 2 must have done it. Being that CH 1 is about 6 inches taller than CH 2, it would’ve been impossible for her to reach the hood of a truck I need a step ladder to get in. He pointed out this fact to our beautiful, loving, honest child and again she seemed completely baffled. “Maybe we both did it a little”, she says as she starts looking at the ground and begins studying invisible objects on the driveway.

So, because we believe in fairness and we know these kids very well, we decide to divide and conquer. Daddy heads down to CH 2’s house and I isolate CH 1 in the house. I have no idea what happened at CH 2’s house but when Daddy returned, there was mention of a complete ratting out of CH 1 and lots of tears. Meanwhile, I cornered my daughter and asked her to tell me the truth. I explained that, although I know she thinks I am a drooling fool, I am not at all stupid and I know she’s lying. She recounts the story of asking to help wash the truck the day before and that Daddy had told her “no”. She then started to babble about how they really just wanted to help and be able to play in the water (even though is was only 50 degrees outside that day) and how if he would’ve let her help………and then she just stopped. I said, “so you smeared dirt all over Daddy’s truck because you were mad at him?” – “yes ma’am”. OH MY HEAVANS! I immediately sent her to her room – so that I could laugh. My sweet little baby girl is practicing to be some sort of Mafia Enforcer – “follow my instructions or pay the price”. I was both shocked and proud. I mean, I couldn’t believe that she would do such a thing do her Daddy and I definitely don’t believe that destruction of property is a good thing. However, I was kind of proud that she didn’t pitch her normal, over dramatic, hysterical, the world is against me fit. Instead, she bided her time and got him back where she knew it would hurt the most. She had to put some thought and planning into the execution of this action to avoid getting caught. She had to work hard to look him dead in the eye, look innocent and LIE. She had to be willing to lay the blame on her friend, who turned out to be completely innocent. Holy smokes – my baby is going to be a politician!

Now, please know that we did discipline our child. She was grounded from her bike and TV for a week. And because we believe in teaching our child to right her wrongs, we forced her to get her tail outside and wash the truck. That’s right – her punishment was to do exactly what she wanted to do in the first place. Could someone hand me a napkin and my robe – People’s Court is on in 10 minutes.