What The Boy hasn’t learned

That could actually be the subject of a voluminous blog in its own right, but for now we’ll limit it to one thing: he hasn’t learned that “magic” words only work on machinery.

I came home from work yesterday, to exactly what I expected: no supper. Fine, whatever, I had some last photos to shoot for a work thing and had picked up two MOVs to fix a surge protector. While retrieving a tripod for the photos, Mrs. Fetched rolled in. I didn’t say anything, just went into the outbuilding and shot the photos.

I needed a Phillips screwdriver to get into the surge protector (one of those nice old Isobar models that have screws holding the case together — not something you want to throw away if you can salvage it), and didn’t have it in the outbuilding. I came back out to find Mrs. Fetched dumping gas into her Barge and the detached garage opened up.

“We need to make sure the windows in the garage don’t open,” she told me. “The Boy said he’s going to get his guitars and amps tomorrow, and he’s not getting them until he pays us for the phone bill.” Neither one of us said the obvious: he probably wanted to sell them to buy drugs. I forgot to mention: last weekend, he admitted his friend borrowed his phone and pretty much stayed on it constantly, running up $600 worth of airtime (putting the girlies to shame). Mrs. Fetched demanded his phone, he threw a tantrum and left, and Mrs. Fetched had his number suspended first thing Monday. So with that in mind, I went back into the outbuilding and finished what I was doing (the new order: I’m not suspending anything for anybody in this free-range insane asylum). Then I picked up a two-by-four laying around, measured out the right length, and fed it to the table saw.

Just in time: as I dropped the last board into place, I heard an unfamiliar car pull up. I quickly locked the garage, shut off the lights, and closed the last door just as The Boy stepped out.

“Is the garage unlocked?” he asked.

“No. Why?”

“I’m going to get my guitar and amp.”

“No you’re not. Not until you pay us the $600 for the phone.”

“F— that. Open the garage or I’ll bust a window.”

“Go right ahead if you want to get arrested,” I said. Mrs. Fetched came back outside, phone in hand, and heard the last exchange. “I’ll call the law!” she yelled, waving the phone.

The Boy walked right up to the door, perhaps he pushed it to see if it hadn’t latched, but decided not to call our (non-)bluff. “F— you! F— you!” he started screaming, walking back to the car (a wise move on his part... if he’d wanted a fight, in my frame of mind I’d have given him plenty more than he wanted).

“F— you right back,” I replied, with the appropriate gesture, as he got back in the car. “You think you’re going to just order us around and blow off your obligations to us, you’re wrong.” The girl at the wheel of this silver Grand Am (with an airbrushed “Kindra” plate on the front) waved at us a couple of times. Mrs. Fetched saw it as more provocation (anything she doesn’t understand is a provocation); I saw it as the futile gesture of someone trying to be helpful and wandering into the middle of something she didn’t want to be a part of.

He rolled down his window and screamed from the safety of the car, “You sell my stuff and I’ll sue you! I’ll sue you!”

“Nobody said anything about selling it,” Mrs. Fetched said with a minimum of heat. “You can have it as soon as we get the money for the phone bill.” He spat something about getting the money from his friend and they drove off. His last gesture was what old-timers would call a “V for Victory” sign — I’m not sure how kids interpret it.

Reruns of the Summer of Discontent are the last thing I need right now. Or maybe I need them as something to direct all my own anger toward. The less time I spend at FAR Manor for now, the better.