The forbidden fruitie

“NOOOOO!” my son Evan screamed from inside the car.  I spun around, looking through the open window to find a gruesome scene unfolding in the backseat. 

Evan’s little brother, Zack, sat on Evan’s legs, blocking him from the fruit snacks that Evan had poured out for both of them to share.  With glee and haste, Zack shoveled the gummy fruits into his mouth.

“My fruities!” Evan screamed, pinned, helpless.   

 A few minutes earlier, when we’d pulled into the garage, the kids had lobbied to explore the car.  They love getting turned loose in there, climbing around, turning on the hazard lights and setting the windshield wipers to fire at monsoon-dissipating speeds the next time the car starts.  I don’t complain, because the kids are contained in there, so I can lean against the outside of the car and spend a few quiet moments paying attention to the thing that really matters in life: my phone.

“Fruities!” Evan had said when he’d found a packet on the floorboard in the third row.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” I’d replied.  “If you’re going to open those, you need to share them with your brother.”

Evan dutifully poured them into the center cup holder so that they could share, which is when Zack crawled back to thank his brother for, and then take advantage of, his generosity.

I yanked the door open and caught Zack with the last fruitie in his hand.  I could have just taken it from him and given it to Evan, but I needed Zack to understand and correct the error of his ways.     
“You give that fruitie to your brother.  Right now,” I whispered, pointing at his chest.  I’d debated about leading with a good fatherly bellow, but those need to be used sparingly to be effective, and I’d already spent my fatherly bellow tokens the previous day.

“Cackers!” Zack had been screaming on our way home from work and daycare.

“We don’t have any crackers, Zack.  You can have some when we get home,” my wife Kara had replied.

“CACKERS!” Zack screamed, for ten minutes straight.  Finally, he broke me, and I unleashed the bellow. 

“STOP CRYING ABOUT CRACKERS!  WE DON’T HAVE ANY CRACKERS IN THE CAR, AND SCREAMING NEVER HELPS ANYTHING!” I screamed, and it helped.  Briefly.

“Cackers,” Zack replied.

Back at the fruitie showdown, Zack looked at my outstretched finger, then at me. 

“Don’t you dare eat that fruitie.  You share it with your brother,” I said.

He looked me in the eyes as he deposited the fruitie into his open mouth.  His little cheeks broke into a grin as he chewed, never taking his eyes off of mine.

“MY FRUITIES!” Evan screamed, flopping backwards in that special convulsion of grief that children reserve for lost high fructose corn syrup.

Zack had tasted the forbidden fruitie, and I could see in his eyes the knowledge he was gaining with each chew.  Sharing is for suckers.  Stealing pays delicious dividends.  Authority exists to be flouted.  If someone’s in your way, sit on them and take their stuff.     

Children will test their boundaries, and if they don’t find any, they’ll careen into the abyss.  At that moment, if uncorrected, Zack’s path forward became very clear, and it was leading to horrible places, like prison or Congress.

“That’s it.  Straight to timeout,” I said, grabbing him by the armpits.  Bo Duke never exited a car so quickly.

Sitting on our front step, it was Zack’s turn to bellow as he served his two-minute sentence. 

Afterwards, he approached the aggrieved party.

“Sorry, Brudder,” Zack said as he hugged Evan.

Evan returned his hug, and then they were off running, side-by-side, to the backyard.  I joined them after locking the car doors, relieved they didn’t notice the granola bar on the floorboard.
   
You can steal Mike Todd’s fruities at mikectodd@gmail.com.