Sweet Gummi Mary! We've known for five months that The Pony would be coming back home after college, on the second weekend of May. Farmer H and I are passable parents. We know a thing or two about raising children. All four boys have survived to adulthood. I'd like to think we had a hand in that. So imagine my disappointment in us for overlooking this next milestone in The Pony's life.
Yes, we left the house as it was. Didn't put on any new locks. Didn't put away the breakables. Didn't have any qualms about leaving him unattended. Well. SOMEONE has found work for The Pony's idle hooves.
Sunday evening, The Pony wanted to toast his buns. HAMBURGER buns, when Farmer H was grilling. So we turned on the broiler, and he lathered them with garlic butter. He watched them closely. So closely that he opened the non-windowed oven door a couple times, at 30-second intervals. Which let out some burny stuff in the form of smoke, which set off the smoke alarm in the kitchen.
I wouldn't normally worry about this, because sometimes that goes off when I'm only preheating a pizza pan. However... The Pony, in an attempt to remedy the situation, rushed to the laundry room, threw open the louvered door, then flung open the back door to the porch, and started fanning it! At which point we had not only the excruciating BEEEP, BEEEP, BEEEP of the kitchen alarm, but also of a second alarm! They didn't quite coordinate. BE-BEEEP-EEP, BE-BEEEP-EEP, BE-BEEEP-EEP.
The Pony tried to make things right. After I commanded him to shut the gosh-darn back door and quit fanning the smoke to a second smoke detector! He protested that there WAS NO ALARM in the laundry room! He wandered through the house.
"Oh, Mom. It's the one in your bedroom."
On Monday night, The Pony confessed that he had meant to run a bubble bath in the big triangle tub in the master bathroom. Farmer H finally fixed whatever gadget had been malfunctioning, after The Pony went back to college after Christmas. He's always loved his baths. So of course he was pleased that now he can enjoy a soak at night.
Anyhoo... when The Pony mentioned this, I noted that we don't HAVE any bubble bath. What was he talking about? The Pony replied that he had used some "old kid shampoo" that he used to have. Which is actually not OLD, in that sometimes I use it, because it's mild, and I like the smell, and it also de-tangles. Apparently, it's also very sudsy. According to The Pony, it made about three feet of bubbles. Okay. No harm, no foul. It didn't run out of the tub. Bullet dodged.
Tuesday evening, we were waiting on Farmer H to return home with our Chinese take-out. The Pony had been partway down the stairs a couple times, giving me updates on Farmer H's whereabouts. Then Farmer H was tromping overhead, so I knew the food was here. The Pony called down to tell me. And then suddenly there he was, at the door of my lair.
"Oh, Mom. I was closing the shades in the living room, and a string broke, and now they're hanging sideways. All I did was twist that rod to turn them closed. And they broke! Snapped! All at once!"
Farmer H is planning to get a new set of mini blinds on Wednesday. I plan to sit most of the day with my eyes on The Pony.
Perhaps you need to put The Pony in one of those huge "bubbles" so at least he can't activate the smoke alarm or break the blinds or made a mound bubbles. Of course, as he rolls around from room to room, he would bump into things and wreak a different kind of havoc.
ReplyDeleteI guess the only choice you have is to keep those eagle-eyes of your trained on him at all times.
Or you could create a list of "rules" he needs to follow. For him to remember them, they could rhyme or they could be a remake of some song lyrics.
Sioux,
ReplyDeleteHeh, heh! Maybe instead, The Pony needs a Habitrail. So he will be contained in TUBES, and not rolling willy-nilly about the Mansion! I already laid down some RULES yesterday. Whether The Pony picked them up or not remains to be seen. I'd say there's a 70 percent chance he complied. I can't create a song for him at this juncture. I'm all hyped-up over my prescription-bunglin buck-passers!
Is this why they say "you can never go home"? It is just never the same is it? I seem to trip over mine when they are here. It is not often, they prefer I come to them and visit them one at a time in order to have my full attention. They still don't share well.
ReplyDeleteI think The Pony should be confined to his rom and you hand him his meals twice a day while he learns the rules that he has forgotten about the smoke alarms at least. And while we're on that subject, surely they shouldn't be going off like that? Just when heating a pizza pan of having someone open the oven door? Mine doesn't go off unless I actually burn something. Possibly the strings on the blinds were already worn out and ready to break.
ReplyDeleteKathy,
ReplyDeleteThat must be it! They DO seem to take up so much room when they come back! And it's harder to "punish" them!
***
River,
Heh, heh! That would not bother The Pony. He'd be thinking, "Wow! I'm away from her all day, AND I get two meals!"
There's something on the oven bottom. I have no idea how it got there, unless Farmer H did something weird when baking his cinnamon rolls. Otherwise, it might be something that leaked through my holey pizza pan, like pepperoni juice. Also, The Pony's garlic butter was giving off some steam, since we were using the broiler.
The usual alarm always goes off like that. I don't know if it's when head comes out from the oven as it's opened? That alarm is of course on the ceiling, about four feet horizontal distance from the oven.
The blinds WERE pretty old. They're not meant to last a long time. Funny how it was THE PONY who was at the helm when the string let go, since Farmer H or I open and close the blinds every day.
Something on the bottom of the oven shouldn't do it, unless that something is on fire.
ReplyDeleteRiver,
ReplyDeleteIt looks like a charcoal puddle! I don't know where it came from! I don't cook anything that bubbles over. The Pony has volunteered to clean it. That might be more of a disaster...