Was I like that?

Right now, my poor wife is trying to get our son to take his medicine for a cold he caught over the past few weeks. He is sitting at our kitchen counter overcome with nervous laughter and as a result delaying the inevitable. He tries to engage his mother in a lively discussion on where in the mouth is the best place to put the medicine to reduce the anticipated unpleasant taste. He claims directly on his tongue is best, while his mom argues for the side of the cheek or under the tongue. She begins to explain the concept of taste buds and where they reside in the mouth of humans (directly on the tongue), but she stops herself. Eventually, she gives up and tells him to take the medicine wherever he wants, just please take the medicine.

He requires glasses of water and a certain dispenser syringe. He now is asking if he can squirt the medicine into the water and then just drink the water. Months ago, we tried this, and it made the water so disgusting, he could not drink it so we had to pour it out and he took his medicine the normal way. We remind him of this and it appears he had remembered this previous incident all along. It appears he was just voicing his options for our benefit rather than an actual proposal he might have considered.

By now, I jump in, attempting to be rational and show my son a new and larger perspective of things. I ask him to consider if there is any way he will get out of taking the medicine tonight. Between giggles, he responds with a "No". I then tell him that he is just delaying the inevitable, so why not just get it out of the way, take your medicine and we can then all go and enjoy our evening. This however appears to fall on deaf ears. He responds to my comments with a request to discuss the Halo Legos toy he has been promised by his mother once his 2 weeks of medicine is up. We assure him that he will get the Halo Legos toy, but he needs to take his medicine now or that reward may be in jeopardy.

This appears to have some affect on my son. He turns to face his fate and as he starts to raise the small plastic syringe to his mouth, another round of nervous giggles burst forth, and we are once again where we started.

My wife is not amused by this, while his sister finds this a bit humorous and responds with a quick laugh. He takes this reaction from his sibling to manufacturer fits of laughter and glee which make him powerless to take the required medicine.

Sighs emanate from his parents and there is an unseen "hitching up of the pants" from both his father and mother. Things have turned serious and we know our daughter senses this by clamping her hand over her mouth to remove any possibility of any further outbursts.

My son in a last ditch effort plays the single card that gives him the delay he so desperately seeks. "I gotta go to the bafroom." I look my beloved bride in the eyes who once dreamed of living in Paris, being married to an successful author and spending her time taking photographs of the world, and see the tiredness grow. We know we are going to lose this battle. Images of the result of released bowels and bladders spring to mind. We see our son, with tears streaming down his face, standing in the middle of our living room with half the pink syrupy medicine mixed with spittle and vomit on his shirt and the other half still in the syringe. His pants are soiled along with the carpet around him. He looks at us with eyes filled with fear and confusion and malice and says, "I told you I had to go to the bafroom."

"Fine, go to the bathroom, but get down here as soon as your done and take this medicine, you understand." His lack of reply is noted as he scampers up the stairs faster than one who in his supposed predicament should.

Silence cuts the tension as me and my once radiant wife and our daughter look at each other and await the sick one's return. He comes out of his bathroom with his pants around his ankles and stands at the top of the stairs.

"What is it?" I ask.

"I'm scared"

"Of what"

"Of the man I accidently saw on TV today."

I shoot a glance at my wife and see her hang her head. She relates the story of earlier today of my son watching a popular television channel that show cartoons for kids. For reasons I cannot begin to understand in my feeble mind, this particular movie company thought 7 year old boys were the perfect target audience for a movie that is to come out this Halloween season that features a masked man stalking and killing innocent victims in lightning storms. How that ties in with SpongeBob Squarepants, is beyond me. My wife attests to the scariness of the trailer and with heavy steps I go upstairs to turn on the bathroom light and check behind the shower curtain.

I return to my seat and in a few minutes hear strange noises coming from the bathroom. Grunting of an unusual nature can be heard. My wife calls my son's name and there is no answer. I start getting a bit worried. After all, my son is sick and he may be having some allergic reaction. I yell louder, "Are you OK?"

"Yep", he replies in a loud and content voice.

"What are you doing up there? Were you grunting?"

"What's grunting" is the reply heard from my first born.

My wife steps in, since she is more fluent in the language of toilet that exists between a child and a mother. "Were you pushing?", she yells up the stairs.

"No, I was sort of pulling in", is his reply.

We both stare at each other in shock and wonderment. My daughter is required to clamp another hand over her mouth to suppress laughter as my wife runs up the stairs to see what that comment was concerning.

5 minutes later, she returns alone, looking even more shocked and desperate.

"What happened up there?", I ask of my lovely soul mate.

"You don't want to know. It hurt him to...go."

"No really, what happened? Is everything OK?'

"Let's just say I had to resort to telling your son that he needs to push because the...well you know...were bad guys and he needed to push them out to send them away."

"What the..."

"Listen, it worked, all right. He got it. I don't to talk about it anymore."

Just then we hear my son bound down the stairs. He appears ready for another round.

"Listen," I say feeling the full exhaustion of a dreadful day at work in a miserable economy and a profession with no future and the knowledge that my son needs to compare his own waste to bad guys. "If you take this medicine, right now, we will get ice cream tomorrow."

"Really?", he asks.

"Really."

"And I get my Halo Legos and the ice cream?"

He's got me here. Clever one. I forgot about the promise of his mother. By using his youth, he has taken advantage of our slow minds and has gotten another reward for doing something that will only make him healthier, happier, and stronger.

"Yes, Halo Legos and ice cream." I can taste the resignation in my mouth as the words pour forth. I am ashamed in front of my wife that I let my 7 year old son trick me like he did. I look up and see compassion in her eyes. She knows I am dealing with a foe that can so easily be underestimated. I see a knowing look in her eye. I immediately recall the time my son could not find his shoes for some function that required shoes, so were were forced to go get him a new pair. Given our haste we were not able to fully negotiate as we would have wanted and as a result, my son received another pair of light-up Spiderman shoes that did not have laces and were way too expensive. He managed to find the original pair of shoes within hours of getting home. Clever one.

"Great! I get Legos and ice cream." And with that, before our eyes, our son plunges the medicine into his mouth, takes a small sip from one of the many glasses of water in front of him, kisses both his mother and I on the cheek and bounds upstairs for bed.

I have no right to get angry. I got what I wanted. My son took his medicine and then went calmly to bed. He played me like a fool and as a result he deserves his due reward.

I slump in my chair resigned to the fact that I have been beat. The realization that in less than 24 hours, we will be confronted with the same battle sends a shiver down my spine. However, there is peace tonight, and for that I am happy. I begin to plot my revenge. I bet if I could find a mask like that guy in the movie trailer, my son would think twice about pulling another one over on his father.

Where can I get that mask?