(And before you NSA guys and Child Services get involved, no, I don’t really mean it. Of course I don’t mean I’d actually take his life. He’s a great kid. But If you’re a parent, you know exactly what I mean. What I mean is that I’m really mad at him, but I love him dearly and I’d never do anything to hurt him. So by “kill” I mean I’m just mad at him. Ok? Fair enough? Did I make that clear enough? Thanks! Enjoy the day, NSA dudes!)

I’m going to kill the little shit five year old.

We have a snack bucket, as I call it. It’s a large canvas container stored at ground level in which are all sorts of snack foods that they can munch on in between meals. (Nate especially since he’s a bit underweight.) Most of the time, they’ll ask “Dan, can I have something from the snack bucket?” If it’s not too close to meal time, then sure, no sweat. Sometimes if they’re really hungry, they can have their choice of two items as long as they eat it at the table. 

Since they often wake up and get out of bed early, there’s usually no problem with them picking out something for themselves as a mini-breakfast to hold ’em over until a proper breakfast can be prepared for them. Anyway, they are usually pretty judicious about snacking from it and they don’t abuse the privilege.

Until today.

First thing this morning. No caffeine. No breakfast. I hadn’t even stretched and scratched my nuts before I opened the garbage can to toss out something I picked up coming down the stairs. Mixed in with the banana peels and coffee grounds, I found about 10-12 open, uneaten Kudos snack bars. Opened. Uneaten. Untouched by human hands. Not even licked. All of them in with the garbage. May as well have just thrown a five dollar bill in the trash. 

One by one, I sorted through the wrappers both empty and full, trying not to get any of last night’s pork chop fat and baked potato with butter, bacon bits and sour cream on my fingers. The smell was enough to knock a buzzard off a manure wagon at fifty paces, but the more I counted, the less I could believe it. And the madder I got.

“Who opened all these snacks and didn’t eat them?” turning to ask sternly, the first words out of my mouth after the customary greeting of the day. “Nate? Did you do this?” 

I suspected Nate because this is just his style. Nate’s misbehaviors are usually more creative than older brother Garrett’s. When something happens, Nate is the go-to guy for the guilt. 

“Nate, Did you open all these and just throw them away?”

“Now Dan,” Nate starts to explain tilting his head slightly as if I’m too stupid to immediately understand. “Yes, because I was trying to find one of the M&M ones and it took me awhile to find it.”

At least he had a reason.

My blood pressure shot up past normal to patent pending. (If you’re not a nurse, next time you get your BP checked at the doc, look at the sphygmomanometer scale and this line will become instantly funny. And, hey, I just got to use the word “sphygmomanometer” casually in a sentence!)

I sat him firmly in his chair — I didn’t lose my temper, though I was VERY close. I put on my best Dad face and said “Nate, that’s about five bucks worth of food you threw in the trash. Do you understand that you’re not supposed to do that?”

“But Dan…”

“NO BUT’S!” I shouted, livid. “That’s unacceptable! You just lost free access to the snack bucket!”

So as of today, the snack bucket gets put out of reach. 

Afterwards, I made both the perpetrator and the innocent bystander, i.e.: Nate and Garrett respectively, a breakfast of cheese omelets. 

What a great guy, huh?

I’m such a good guy, I deserve a reward. I’d go have a tasty Kudos bar as a well-deserved reward for not killing Nate, but I can’t ’cause the little shit opened ’em all and put ’em in the garbage can!