Of Cleats and Ipods

The young woman called her mother early one Monday afternoon.
"I found my Ipod!" she enunciated over her cell phone.
Flabbergasted, the mother cried back,
"What! Where? When?"
"In my cleats! Remember I left my gear bag in my locker over the weekend, because I was sick and I couldn't go to practice all last week?" "Well, I gotta go to practice, bye!"
The young woman was off the phone in a flash; under the assumption that the mother would automatically drop whatever she was doing to fly to Provo High School to pick her up after softball practice.

Well, the young woman was correct in her assumption. The mother will drop everything. She will stop in the middle of dinner preparations, laundry folding, and most importantly... the finale of whatever the Barefoot Contessa is concocting on her show, to fly off to pick the young woman up after softball practice.

The mother vaguely remembers putting the Ipod in the cleats. It was supposed to serve as a wake up moment for the young woman when she finally found them. The young woman was supposed to grasp the fact that never in a million years would she, herself, ever have put the Ipod in a stinky, disgusting cleat. Only the busy, overworked, under appreciated mother would have pulled off such a stunt.

And, the young woman was supposed to feel chastened. Supposed to feel slightly ashamed of herself for losing such an expensive possesion. The irony of the smelly cleat was totally lost on the young woman, she had no idea of the lesson lost.

The mother has given up on parenting, and is now in the process of turning over all parenting duties to the father.