Scenario:

14yo teen boy comes home and says: “Mom how do you get paint off my backpack?”

So, like all parents of teenagers, the first response that pops into my head is a question, or rather, several questions:

“Where was there paint?” (a door at school)

“Wasn’t there a sign?” (no)

“Didn’t someone mention something?” (no)

Can I just breathe out a big fat sigh here? Thanks. 😶

I’m not mad. I’m trying to see the humour in this… 🙂

Here’s what’s going through my head:

A) There must have been a sign. They work in a high school full of teenager, kids with not yet fully formed brains, of course there would have been a sign. Right?

B) There was a sign but my kid didn’t read it or see it. I can base this on the fact that he will perform complicated gymnastics at the stairs in order to step over a full basket of clean laundry placed there strategically so he can take it with when he goes to his room. He doesn’t because “I didn’t see it” even when he practically falls down the stairs stepping over the basket (his room is in the basement). Hence, I imagine he would have walked through his hallway at school, and not seen the sign (if there was a sign) and promptly leaned against the freshly painted door while socializing with his friends.

C) Other senses in teenagers are also unformed, hence, the smell of wet paint would not have activated his sense of smell. Or, his sense of smell is defective due to the, um, odorous dressing rooms at hockey making him incapable of smelling anything…

D) Or, I could believe him when he says there was no sign, and accept it. This is really hard because even if there was no sign at that particular moment (maybe the painter went to get the sign made), no one could possibly expect a teenager to recognize something like wet paint on a door, or, quite possibly, other paint-related materials nearby to indicate that perhaps, there was fresh, wet paint in the area. Am I wrong? I’m just trying to understand…

E) Besides, what kind of bonehead decides to paint doors in a high school hallway during school hours?

Anyway, he couldn’t satisfactorily answer any of my questions, and when he asked his sister if she knew of some magic way to clean up the paint off his bag (being Little Miss Painting constantly all the time) she took one look at the bag and said ‘that’s not gonna come off’.

I asked him if he tried to wipe it in the bathroom immediately upon discovery, when the paint was still wet. He said yes, tried for 15 minutes.

Here’s my thing:

I know my kid better than anyone. I want to believe him. But I just know instinctively that…there was a sign, he was in La La Land, didn’t pay attention to his surroundings, did try to wash off the paint in the bathroom but probably for 15 seconds, not minutes, because teenage boy…

In the end, I counted our lucky stars because he got the paint on his bag and not his hockey jersey which he requires for hockey…

Anyway. His bag has white paint streaks on it. Big whoop.