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| I'm gonna type you this love poem. And when I'm done, you'll be in my power |
Because my life is so exciting, I
was engrossed in a Dateline NBC special the other day when the doorbell rang.
Before I could pick myself up off the couch, the bell was followed by frenzied
knocking. My lovely daughter was away driving the next door neighbor crazy at a
birthday party, and I assumed she was making another visit home to update me on
the awesome toys her neighbor friend was receiving that I must match in a few
months.
Imagine my
surprise when I opened the door and found not a giggling, dancing, greedy child,
but a tasty looking piece of chocolate cake on my front doorstep. Hmmm. Weird.
But tantalizing nonetheless.
I looked left – nothing. I looked
right – no one.
I assumed
it was meant for my daughter. Like most kids Chris doesn’t eat cake at parties
because she’s too busy playing and mainlining full-sugar candy from her goodie
bag. Then she later complains that she didn’t get a piece of cake as if
drinking half your body weight of fruit punch isn’t enough of a head start on
diabetes. So, I figured she finally learned to snag a piece for later and was
giving it to me for safe keeping. By the way, that would have been a huge
mistake.
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| Breakfast in bed? No. Movie ticket bribe. |
Still, I
was making no assumptions. There was no name on it. I mean, who could resist a
free piece of cake that’s apparently been delivered by the angels at the most
perfect time? So I picked it up and had the fork half-way to my mouth when I
figured I should probably make sure this cake wasn’t one big fat joke. Not that
it would stop me from enjoying it, but it might make me pause long enough to brush
it off if I knew it had recently made contact with dirt or bugs.
So I yelled
for Chris and heard giggling. I yelled again and she popped her head around the
side of the house.
“Hi Mommy! I
got that cake especially for you because I know how much you looooooove cake,”
she said with a smile. Then she skipped away to go play and inhale some more
sugar.
So with the
green light I inhaled the cake, which had the wrong kind of frosting but was
tasty just the same. But the entire time, I also had an uneasy feeling.
Something didn’t sit right and I could feel the chocolate confection sitting
like a ball in my stomach.
I know my kid. And I know this was
no gift cake brought to me with loving joy. This was most likely bribery cake. You
see, whenever Chris does something good, I’ve learned from experience that
there is usually another shoe waiting to drop.
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| Yep, right after my birthday dinner Chris begged for her friend to spend the night. |
For
example, she doesn’t just clean her room to earn her allowance or so she
doesn’t have to live in filth. She cleans her room in a pre-emptive strike
against my list of reasons why she can’t have a sleepover. And Chris doesn’t
eat her vegetables because she’s so happy to be eating healthy. She gags them
down because she believes that will put her in good standing to enjoy dessert.
So you can
imagine my unease knowing that this sugar bomb was left at my door with me
specifically in mind. There was something up and it wasn’t long before I knew
the real reason behind the cake. An hour or so later Chris showed back up at
the door with her friend Kayla in tow (knowing from experience that it’s harder
to say no when they’re ganging up on you) and asked if I would drive them to a
park across town.
When I
laughed and said she must be crazy, you would have thought that blood was dripping
from the knife in the child’s back and creating bloody frowny face drawings on
my chalk-covered stoop.
“But I brought you
caaaaakkkkkkeeee!” she cried.
Of course.
Bribery cake.
If you have
kids you’ll understand. There comes a point when a hug, a kiss and ‘I love you’
makes you instantly cringe and wonder where the broken vase is hiding. An offer
to help unload the dishwasher is a clue that a bad report card is just around
the corner. There always seems to be an ulterior motive involved.
Chris still
hasn’t got it quite right yet because she always seems to break the first rule
– don’t let the bribee know that you are trying to bribe her. Just like the kid
she is, she can’t hold onto a secret long enough to make the bribe do its intended
duty. Like on birthdays, for example, when she tells me days in advance that
she’s working on something special for me. Oh and, by the way, maybe I should
remember just how much I love her present when she asks me if she can stay
outside a little later with her friends. Fail.
She’ll get
it soon enough. As a friend pointed out to me, she’s still learning the nuances
of a good bribe. Until then, I’ll enjoy her failures and fear the day when her
skills will be so fine-tuned that I won’t know her loving kindness is all a
ploy.
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| She learned from example. The only way we could get this thumb sucking to stop was by bribing her with pierced ears. |
