Mudroom on Your Face

My seven-year-old nephew took matters into his own hands when his older sister refused to do his school homework for him. No amount of his screaming could change her mind. When she tuned him out with IPod ear buds, she implemented a behavior modification technique called planned ignoring. He declared the situation an actual emergency and dialed 911.

On the telephone with police, his tattletale rage finger pointed intolerable big sister behavior but it also indicted his disproportionate sense of entitlement. By the time his mother intervened in the escalating argument, my nephew hung up the phone on the police dispatcher. After his mortified mother verbally reprimanded him, my nephew sensed that he overreacted a smidgen by involving armed men in blue over an incomplete multiplication table. Waiting for the police to answer the domestic call, my nephew barricaded himself deep in the closest of the mudroom under the camouflage of snowshoes.

During the police intervention, no amount of winter boots could hide his red-faced embarrassment. My nephew had mudroom on his face.