Our Own Criminal Mastermind . . . but not really

Our oldest son has long relished his role as the greatest criminal mastermind of all time. At 10 years old, he thinks he’s Lex Luthor.  Since he started to drool effectively he’s always trying to sneak, steal, and swindle.  And while he may not yet be an investment banker or a third-world dictator, we keep trying to get him to follow a few rules.  His most frequent offense is the sneaking of forbidden food.  This would be a bigger problem if it wasn’t for the fact that he’s too lazy to hide the evidence and he’s a horrific liar, despite great efforts.  We’ve caught him with a dozen granola bar wrappers under his pillow and he’s denied he had anything to do with them – he even challenged the existence of granola bars in the house at all (probably because he ate them all one afternoon).  He’ll blame things on siblings and even act totally confused when the evidence is utterly conclusive that he’s the disobeyer of the parents.  We always know when he’s out of sight for a couple minutes to assume that something is being eaten that shouldn’t be. 

Tonight we sent him to dump the trash, and after a few minutes the Mrs HTF and I decided it was time to catch him doing whatever raccoon-like scavenging he was doing.  Just as she went to the garage, he walked in.  She confronted him asking if he’d been eating anything.  His answer was the predictable “no,” uttered while looking away at a nearby wall.  Then she said, “open your mouth.”  (There are no procedures or illegal searches when it comes to parents, . . . thank goodness.)  He opened wide.  There was no visual evidence there, so, with his mouth still open, she STUCK HER NOSE IN and after pondering for a moment declared triumphantly and with a disconcerting grin, “. . . Beef Jerky!”  The super-sniffer never lies.  He’d been defeated and he knew it.  His lowered head told us that his surrender flag was up – he’d been munching the forbidden jerky that’s supposed to be for camping trips and emergencies like when mom is gone for a several hours at a time. 

Oh, he’ll keep trying.  And he’ll get away with plenty, but because of his super-sleuth mommy, he’ll probably be grounded well into his 30s so we’re hoping that will limit his life of crime a bit.

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