From Now On: Trust, But Verify

Last night our soon-to-be-five neighbor Ioan came over to hang out with us during the pre-dinner witching hour. It's not uncommon for Mead Street children to farm themselves out to another household at this time of day, when parents are busy cooking, or still not home yet, everyone's a little hungry, and tempers are short. Usually around six either the families consolidate and we all eat together, or the kids sort themselves out to their respective dinner tables. So when we started the nightly waterboarding session (otherwise known as Making Our Children Set the Table), we weren't surprised to hear the door slam behind our departing young friend.

It was a little unusual (though not unprecedented) for him to reappear five minutes later and announce that his mom had said it was okay for him to eat dinner with us. "Great!" we said, and handed Simon another plate and fork. The six of us sat down (Lauren was joining us as well), sang the song, and started serving out the pasta. Ioan, refusing sauce, proceeded to give each of his fingers and thumbs a little rigatoni hat. He then wiggled all ten digits at us gleefully before popping the rigatonis into his mouth, one by one. We passed around "Simon's Ches" (a green cylinder of shredded parmesan, hand-labeled by the eponymous cheese-lover who has proved himself unable to spoon parmesan out of a PCC container without spewing it all over the table & floor) and began to discuss the merits of Buffy the Vampire Slayer as a female role model.

Just as Josie got up to get some more milk, the phone rang. "Don't answer," we told to her, "It's dinnertime." She brought the milk and the phone back from the kitchen and said, "I didn't answer, but it looks like it was Ioan's Dad calling." "Oh!" we said, and everybody looked over at Ioan, who studiously kept his eyes on the second round of rigatoni hats he was applying to his fingers. We dialed his house.

"Hello, Bryan," we said.

A pause. Ioan quickened his rigatoni-hatting pace.

"What's that? Aly actually said no, he couldn't have dinner with us?" By the time we got to the end of this sentence, Ioan had slipped off his chair, wiggled his noodle-clad fingers at us, and sprinted into the kitchen.

"Oh, well -- sorry! Would you like us to send him home?" By the time we got to the end of this sentence, he had jammed his feet into his shoes and slammed the door behind him.

Notice: Effective immediately, all dinner guests will be required to present a signed, notarized parental authorization form, in triplicate.