I woke to the smell of bacon filling the air. Without hesitation I jumped out of bed and ran toward the intoxicating smell emanating from the kitchen. As I approached the kitchen I began formulating a plan to secure an entire plate of bacon for my breakfast. I entered the kitchen offering a warm salutation to my mother and father, then shot a compliment to my mom on how pretty she looked this morning. I immediately knew I was laying it on too thick as they gave each other some crazy side eye. Regaining my composure, I jockeyed my way to the counter to select my desired allotment of bacon for breakfast. However, my mother almost immediately shut me down. Fighting back a fit of rage, I tried to explain to her that my love and loyalty to bacon was unmatched. She immediately dismissed my comments. I then shared that I did not believe my position was unreasonable as I was not going to eat all the bacon. I was baffled at her insistence that I only have 3 pieces; I truly could not comprehend how she can dismiss logic, rational thoughts, and some alternative facts. Feeling defeated I accepted her wildly unfair offer of 3 pieces of bacon, but vowed I would get my fair share by the end of the day.
As I sat at the table my father tried to discuss with me the activities we were going to be doing that day. I think he thought I was in a generally amiable mood based on my initial entrance into the kitchen. At one point I stared him in the eye and almost yelled, “It was a façade! I just wanted bacon, which I have been denied; and for that reason I do not carrrrree about today’s activities!” Rather than create more conflict I choose to begin daydreaming about the wicked awesome Lego castle I was going to build after breakfast. My daydream was interrupted when my father began repeating my name and asking about the day’s activities. The reality was that I did not have a clue about the day’s activities as I was thinking about my Lego castle. As I saw he was beginning to become visually upset I had two choices: option (1) say something random; option (2) come clean and state I wasn’t listening. Naturally, I chose option 1and tried to fake it until I made it. Leveraging past experiences I knew if I said something random I had to be all-in and provide superfluous details to really sell the idea. Without a lot of time to think of something super creative I said, “The bird outside just laid an egg, and it was magical.” Trying to decipher his facial expressions was challenging. He was generally confused, which gave me some extra time to come up with some other creative details to put the hard sell on my tale. My father asked, “What color was the bird?” Without missing a beat I said, “Blue with long white tail feathers.” He inquired further, “What color was the egg?” I responded, “The egg was light green with brown dots.” His interrogation tactics ended when he began to realize I was going to rattle off response after response until the exercise came to completion. Finally, he told me to clear my plate from the table, then go to my room to change my clothes. I lethargically cleared my plate while I continued to contemplate my next move as I still needed to address the larger issue of the morning: eating a full plate of bacon.
As I changed my clothes in my room, I began forming a strategy to get my fair share of bacon, and I quickly came to conclusion that I needed a shock-and-awe approach to best position myself to score more bacon. I recalled a recent conversation in which my parents told me about the importance of recognizing and alerting others when stranger danger situations arise. If I saw a stranger outside I could alert my parents of his/her presence to bring the stranger danger to their attention, then sneak into the kitchen and get more bacon. I began looking out my window waiting for a stranger to walk by and within a few minutes a man walking his dog began walking toward our house. I ran into the kitchen screaming loudly that stranger danger was outside and it warranted their immediate attention to address the situation. Generally concerned my parents got up and began walking to the window in the living room to examine the situation. Hook, line, and sinker they had bought it and left me alone in the kitchen. With time of the essence, I grabbed my little helper step stool and dashed toward the counter where the bacon was still resting. I jammed as many pieces of that bacon goodness in my mouth as I could fit. Hearing footsteps I looked down at the plate again and realized I had consumed nearly half of the plate. Panicking for ideas, I took the remaining pieces and tried to split them evenly so the plate looked uniformly covered. Nearly a second after I finished, my parents walked into the kitchen again and asked what I was doing on my step stool near the bacon. I fired off the first thing that came to my mind, “Just smelling the bacon.” I had chewed pieces of bacon packed on each side of my cheek but none came out when I replied. My father shared a puzzled look, but did not explore the thought further as he began to explain the differences between strangers and stranger danger. I clearly knew the difference as he explained it in a painfully long tutorial the week before but I entertained the conversation for a minute to move the conversation further from the bacon questions. I nodded acknowledging his insights then quickly put back my step stool and returned to my room.
In the safe confines of my bedroom I chewed the remaining bacon in my mouth. I then laid in my bed in a food coma until I heard my mother yelling my name, asking me to come to the kitchen. I began running scenarios through my head as I headed toward the kitchen: do I play coy; do I admit my wrongdoings do I deny it (and possibly spin it back on her)? As expected, she had discovered that the amount of bacon had decreased. I thought it would be advantageous to get first word in expressing my shock at the loss of bacon, “This is truly upsetting mom. I wanted more bacon as I said at breakfast.” My statement planted the seed of doubt in my mom’s head. However, she had lived with me long enough to sift through the comments to discover the truth. She then bombarded me with a series of questions which cross-referenced previous questions creating true confusion. Knowing from her questioning that she already had the answer, I was openly confused and I was unable stop. I was an open book and I started volunteering other things had done wrong recently. My mother had to stop me from talking. She stated she appreciated my candor and was not mad, but rather kind of impressed. I hatched a well-orchestrated plan that was nearly perfectly executed. She alerted me to the fact that had my dad not scrutinized the miniature bacon pieces when putting the food away I would have been in the clear. I thought, “That guy needs to get a life and find a better use of his time”. To ensure there were no hard feelings, I gave my mom a hug and told her I loved her. While walking back to my bedroom I went out of my way to pass my father in the living room. In passing I pointed my two fingers to my eyes and then directed the fingers toward him and to be abundantly clear I stated,“ I am watching you.” “Thanks for putting me on notice,” he replied. My father’s witty comment was not lost on me. Before leaving the living room I made one final comment, “If you keep this up, you are not going to be invited to my birthday party.” For a four year old, approaching his fifth birthday, that is as serious as it gets, putting someone on notice that their birthday invitation is in jeopardy should shake them to their core. I put my hands high in air, pivoted and exited the room knowing I had just won that conversation.