Life With Boys

Life with boys … about a month ago, the boys both came home for spring break … we were lucky that the girlfriend generously offered to save us the 12-hour round trip by picking up the boy after class (she is about three hours away) …

About 10:30 pm, I hear the motion detector alarm go off … and a few minutes later, it goes off again, but still no kiddo … I head out to the driveway to see if they need help schlepping two months of laundry and a cat inside …

The scene on the driveway is confusing … I can tell something is amiss … “Hey, good to see you. How was the drive? … crickets … the boy finally chimes in … “we can’t find her purse, we think it may have fallen out of the car when we switched drivers; and she is leaving early in the morning for Florida, she really needs it.” … well, alrighty then, let’s get your stuff and the cat inside, and we will retrace your steps … we send the girlfriend home to do laundry and pack … she is not excited about that, but it makes more sense …

Inside we start the process of mapping their route … I start with what I think is the easy one, when did you see the purse last … well they had it when they stopped for gas … might be a station with a dinosaur sign, or maybe that is just the logo on the shirt he is thinking of, or maybe it was a just green sign … no he does not know what city that was in …

Try again, what road were you on … he doesn’t know they were just following the gps … ok did you drive through this city or that city … still does not know … we pull up a map … still no recall … Omg, this is so my kid … he may need killing …

He thinks it was within the last hour of the drive … they pulled over on the side of the road … in the dark … somewhere between school and our house …

He then draws me a map … you see, there was a gravel road and then a second gravel road with a green sign … awesome a gravel road and a sign, in the dark, on the side of a highway … ok let’s go …

It’s now 11 pm, and we are setting off … we pick a destination about an hour away to use as our turn around spot, and then we start to visit every right side pull off … it is maybe 30 degrees out, and he is wearing a tee shirt … he is armed with the mag light that can double as a weapon and the light of our hazards to illuminate the scene … cars and trucks are flying by, and our car shakes like a tin can … each set of lights illuminating his outline as he pursues this fool’s errand … she is frequently texting to see if we have had any luck yet …

We pull off about 13 times … we discover bits of tires, bags of trash, a shoe or two, indescribable bits of road detritus, and we are starting to lose hope … then he thinks this next one looks right …

And holy crap, it is … there on the side of the road like someone just set it down for a minute … no worse for wear …

I have since purchased a set of air tags, I hope we never need to find out if they work …