He told me so.

“Mom, Mom come here quick. You gotta check this out!”

“What is it Austin?”

“It’s Mack, he’s under the bed. It’s Mack Mom, it’s Mack.”

Instantly my heart sank in despair. He wasn’t supposed to find it. His birthday’s not for another month and a half. Jason told me he’d find it. I knew better than that and insisted that I could keep it hidden until the big day.

So it was that two days ago, yep count’em two days, I pulled out Mack the truck, which we’d purchased a couple weeks ago, and which had up until this time been hiding in the trunk of our car, and began to assemble him there on our living room floor, after Austin had gone to bed of course, so it’d be ready for its big debut on Nov. 2nd. I just wanted to make sure it was all there and that it was all put together so we didn’t have to try assembling it when Austin would immediately want to play with it. At least that’s what I told myself. Okay, so maybe there was a small part of me that was excited, no, REALLY EXCITED, to play with it first. But what’s the harm in that? Isn’t that half the fun of having kids anyway is getting to play with all their cool toys that you buy to play with, I mean for them to play with? And so I felt completely justified in my actions. Besides, I had the perfect hiding place for Mack. There’s so much stuff under our bed even if he did look under there, there’s no way he’d find him.

Nevertheless this afternoon, after taking a nap on our bed, Austin woke up and began playing with his toys that had taken a nap with him. Wouldn’t you know it, one of them fell off the bed. He proceeded to climb down onto the floor and start snooping around looking for it. And then, well you know the rest.

I had to call Jason at work and go through the usual routine.

“I’m stupid, you’re smart. I was wrong, you were right. You’re the best, I’m the worst. You’re very good-looking, I’m not attractive.”