WWYD?

Have you ever watched that show What Would You Do?

You know where the ABC news guy sets up an actor to portray a transgender transvestite kid with red hair and bad shoes to go into a restaurant and have a conversation with his mother about leaving him on the side of the road when he was four.  And then everyone within earshot is supposed to jump to the kid's defense when the woman playing his mother says that he totally deserved it because he was dripping ice cream all over the back seat, but then no one reacts at all and the whole thing bombs and the ABC news guy comes in and questions the on-lookers about why they didn't get involved and what kind of society are we living in that transgender transvestite kids with red hair can get left on the side of the road and no one helps them out?

You know that show?

I love that show!  I think it's a fascinating statement about our culture and about what we're willing to watch on TV on Friday nights, because you can bet, if I don't have anything better going on, I'm watchin' this show.

Anyway...I'm asking because I had a WWYD moment at the beach this weekend and I thought I'd ask you:

What would you do if you told your kids that they are not, under any circumstances, to ride the electric scooter that belongs to the little girl next door,

not because you're afraid they're going to crash into something and hurt themselves,

but rather because you're afraid they're going to crash into something and wreck the scooter and then the girl's parents are going to make you pay for it,

and then you look out the window and see your children riding all over the front driveways on said scooter and even smiling at you in the window?

What would you do?

This is what I did...

I took a bunch of pictures of them, then when they came in I looked my daughter right in the face and said,

"You didn't ride on the scooter, did you?

"What?"

"I told you not to ride on the scooter, so you didn't, right?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, that I specifically told you not to ride on her scooter, and I just want to know that you didn't do it."

"Oh.  Yeah.  No.  We didn't."

Then I got up, grabbed my camera, turned it on, pressed the playback button, turned it around so she could see the display screen and started flipping though the pictures while saying,

"Good," *flip* "because I told you" *flip* "not to do that" *flip* "and I would hate to think" *flip* "that you weren't listening" *flip* "or doing what was asked of you" * flip*

Her hands flew up to her face.  Her eyes widened in horror.  She opened her mouth and the river of excuses started flowin'

"I'm sorry.  She wanted me to.  I know you said not to.  It just looked like so much fun."

I don't normally put my children in the position to lie to me.  It's not a good lesson for them.  But, come on.  They saw me taking their pictures.  They made faces to me in the window.  Certainly they must have known that I saw what they were doing, and that this was all just a big lesson in recognizing that on Friday nights at the beach their mother is a freak who likes to play games of torture. 

Right?

And then my son walked over to her and said,

"Don't you know that Mom's just kidding?  She's totally just kidding.  That's not funny, Mom."

It was a little funny....

She was fine.  I apologized for being a jerk and tricking her like that, and they both understood why I hadn't wanted them to ride on the scooter in the first place.

And they rode bikes and skateboards and scooters happily ever after.

The End.

Sheesh!....