As we walked across the Walmart parking lot this afternoon, my husband of forty-five years, Bud, pointed out my loose bootlace. I had no intention of bending over in the parking lot to tie it, so replied, “I have a backache. I’ll tie it later.”
Bud couldn’t deal with the idea of the flopping shoelace, so he rolled his eyes and grumped, “You can’t walk around like that. You’ll break your danged neck. Stand still. I’ll tie it!”
With that, he dropped down on one knee to tie it, just as a couple of guys walked by, obviously wondering what was going on.
I couldn’t pass up this opportunity, spouting, “No, I won’t marry you! Now get up!”
Turning the tables on a kid who’s spent most of his life (I am being intentionally ambiguous here so neither of my kids feels neglected) creating embarrassing situations is refreshing. We went out of town for a few days, leaving our college-aged son home, after specifically asking him not to have guests over. He was certainly old enough to be responsible, for what that’s worth, but we just didn’t want to deal with any problems on our return.
Nutsrok 