Yesterday afternoon a young boy with autism went missing in our community. The citizens of our town and neighboring towns combed the 3 mile radius in which the boy had been last seen. Hundreds of cars with flashing lights took to the streets and side roads, and many people were searching the woods and pastures on foot. The attention by all was inspiring. We also aided in the search with our children in the car, hoping that more eyes would better our chances to assist the operation. Once the dissipation of daylight began, the community’s concerns grew. With various ponds, steep drop offs, wild animals and a chill setting in the air, one could not help but fear the worst. Was he possibly abducted? Did he hit his head and was unable to respond to any search parties? So many unwelcome thoughts and questions. He had been missing for hours. After taking my family home around 9 pm, I went out for another round of searching only to discover that the boy had recently been found about 500 yards from his home, safe and sound. What a relief for him and his family! And now I was able to finally stop imagining the ugly truth that this could have been one of my own children. I went home, hugged and kissed them all.

So this morning, when the typical craziness occurred before I left the house for work, my demeanor was slightly different than usual. I was in the bathroom when I heard my 10 year old daughter screaming at my 14 old son repeatedly “cut it out!! Jerk! I said stop it already!!”. I yelled over from my bathroom and asked what was going on. My daughter yelled back “I’m trying to eat my cereal and he keeps showing me the red eye!”. For those of you whom are not familiar with the “red eye”, I’m not going to explain it here- let’s just say its much worse than getting mooned. Normally I would have reprimanded my son but I let it go. Next up was my 8 year old son. Apparently he farted in my 6 year old daughter’s direction much to her dismay, and instead of her usual verbal reciprocation she squeezed his cheeks with her fingernails. This resulted in an MMA fashioned altercation. I did not get too upset about that either. When my wife came home with coffees shortly before my departure, she pleaded with my 10 year old to acknowledge repeated requests to begin tidying up her messes and to put her clothes away. My daughter responded with disrespectful tones and only gave a half ass attempt at completing the required tasks. My wife looked to me for support which I usually oblige with tough reprimands, yet again I didn’t really have the heart to do that either.

I was honestly just thankful to have the fighting , diarrhea talk and disrespect occur rather than having to wonder where my children were and whether they might have gone permanently missing. Rather than wondering if some child molester had abducted my children or whether they drowned in some marsh waters, I was actually pleased to see my children fuck with each other and cause distress within our family home. I’ll take that over losing them any time. Don’t get me wrong, the next time they spit orange juice at each other over the white carpet, cause each other to fall of their bikes, walk through the house with dog shit on their shoes, call each other butt holes in a nice restaurant or leave a massive heap of crayons in the laundry only to screw up the washer and dryer, I’ll probably revert back to wanting to kill or punish them. But not today.

I’m overly delighted that the boy was found alive and well last night, and equally delighted that my little morons are home safe. I definitely enjoyed today’s crappy morning.