Skylar Takes a Powder

Thursday morning dawned bright and interesting. The Boy took Mason down to Newnan, for an overnight with his fiancé's family. She (haven’t come up with a suitable blog-name for her yet) is a decent sort, and Mason adores her.

About twenty minutes after they left, I was checking a few things online, and saw a cop car drive by my window… which meant he was in the driveway. I was afraid that The Boy might have gotten up to something, although I had no idea what, and I didn’t have any better theories.

With the coffee still working on kicking in, I gave the cop one of my more intelligent greetings: “What’s going on?”

“Uh, do you have a little boy that lives here?”

“Yeah.” Now I wondered who had called DFACS on us. M.A.E’s mom used to make a habit of doing that, using them as a harassment tool, until they put her on a “permanent ignore” list.

“Did he miss the bus this morning?”

“He doesn’t ride a bus,” I said, more confused than usual for a morning (which takes some doing). “He’s four, goes to pre-K, but Monday through Wednesday.”

“Is he here?”

“He just left with his dad.”

“So he’s your…” By this time, the cop had a smartphone in hand and was poking at it.

“Grandson.”

“What’s his name?”

“Mason.”

“Is this him?” He held up the phone, with a picture of Skylar.

I managed to suppress the urge to say “You have wrong house,” in my worst Russian accent. Having the wife come up behind me may have helped with that. Instead, I said, “That’s Skylar. Mason’s second cousin.”

“Ah. He missed the bus this morning, and just started wandering around. One of the neighbors found him and called us.”

Wife gave him directions to Big V’s place, and he went on his merry way.

Now Skylar has been living with Big V for a while. She’s half blind, has one leg… and so, she often doesn’t see him doing things he shouldn’t and can’t catch him when she does see him. I’m guessing she zorched out and he took advantage of the situation to play outside. Wife opined that Skylar would shortly end up in a foster home… while I took a hike up a busy highway as a toddler around 1961, authorities don’t have much of a sense of humor about such things today. In the end, Skylar’s parents, Cousin Splat and Badger Boobs (long story), got him. I hope they can keep it all together, for his sake.

If not… I rather expect he’ll end up as a long-term inmate at FAR Manor.