Will I Am

Will is a smart kid.

When he was a toddler, we nicknamed him The Philosopher because he was always coming up with wise observations about the world.

He was the one that coined our family motto, at the age of 5: "Help us remember to be thankful for what we asked for."

But I am afraid he may have entered that stage of life where the teenage brain is growing and changing so fast that it literally shuts down, and all reasoning is relegated to a tiny little section in the front of the brain that is not very good at being rational or thinking ahead.  I'm not making this up.  It's real.  Google it.


He told me that his church leader was picking him up at 8:00 on Sunday morning to collect fast offerings.  I asked him if he was sure it was at eight.  8:00 on a Sunday morning seemed really early to be knocking on people's doors asking for money.  He thought about it for a minute, then said, "oh, maybe it was nine."  So I asked him what time he usually goes, since he has been collecting fast offerings every month for the past year and a half. 

"Uhhh, I think we usually finish at 10:30, so we probably start at nine.  Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's nine."

So 9:00 comes and goes, and no leader shows up.  I question my intelligent, forward thinking son again.  "Are you sure he said he would pick you up?  He doesn't usually pick you up does he?"

"Uhh, I don't know.  But he said he would pick me up."

At 9:15, I decide the leader must have forgotten, which is odd, because he is usually really reliable about this stuff.  So I yell at Will to grab his coat and get in the car so I can run him over to the church in  hopes of catching the other guys before they leave.   As we are pulling out of the driveway, I make some comment about how it's weird that Buzz forgot him.  Then a sudden rush of inspiration comes to Will.  "OH, he said to call him if I needed a ride!"

"Oh," I say.  "Well, that's a little bit different than saying he would pick you up now, isn't it?  And now you are 20 minutes late and you are probably going to miss them.  And where is your coat? It's freezing out here!"

"Oh, yeah, I forgot my coat! Oh well, I'll be okay."  It was probably 30 degrees.

So as we were pulling into the church parking lot, the leader was pulling out with a passel of boys in his truck, so I pulled over and Will jumped in with them.  Then I followed the truck back to our neighborhood and watched as  Will jumped out, about three doors down from our house. THAT was a productive 15 minutes of my Sunday morning.

Oh, and he came home an hour later shaking and shivering and teeth chattering.  "It's cold out there! I should have taken my coat!"

I had to whack myself in the forehead.  If I hadn't I probably would have whacked him.