Training Your Kids NEVER Ends!

My 18-year-old son, Keeve, did not get my storytelling-gene… at all. I feel I have not trained him in good faith as his mother in this area. #momfail2277  I offer this story as evidence and my solemn vow to work with him on his retelling abilities. Pinky swear.

(Photo credit: Monica Hortiales, Youth Pastor and fine storyteller)

Our tale begins with some backstory: it was a Wednesday night. Keeve left for church at 4:45. Nora and I left at 6:00. Rick was supposed to leave at 6:20. Austin went straight from work to church.

Upon arrival at church the sweet greeter lady hugs my neck and relays, “Your son handled that like a trooper!” I smiled. I had no idea what she was talking about… nor which son she was referring to.

Nothing else was mentioned until we were getting in the van to drive home. My husband reached down between the front seats and grabbed a piece of paper and scotch tape, saying, “I’ll be right back.” I still didn’t know what was going on… OR if this had anything to do with the other stuff I didn’t know was going on.

Upon Keeve’s arrival home that night, his dad asks him, “So, what happened?” Here is Keeve’s entire story, “I got pulled over. The license plate on the car was stolen.” THE END. I inquired a bit further and discovered the paper and scotch tape were for the temporary plate that Rick printed off at home and brought to the church.

FOUR DAYS LATER…. we had our youth pastor over for lunch and got the whole truth. She was in the church, looking out the windows when Keeve pulled in, followed by, not one, but four police cars. Keeve was told to stay in the car as one cop approached his side of the vehicle. Then SEVEN MORE armed officers of the law got out of their vehicles and surrounded my innocent baby boy in his car…. in front of the church! Yeah, he forgot to mention backup.

The officer at the driver’s window asked if Keeve knew why he was being pulled over. NO! He proceeded to explain that the license plate on the car was a stolen plate and he needed to see Keeve’s license and registration. Another officer was removing the hot plate as they spoke. The remaining officers were casing the joint, because our church is in an industrial strip-mall of sorts…. perfect cover for a chop-shop to steal cars and paint them and switch out license plates and deter the law.

At this point, the youth pastor came out of the church and was waving her cell phone, mouthing to Keeve, “Do you need me to do anything?“ Keeve simply smiled his shy smile and shook his head back and forth.

Next the kind officer asked Keeve, “What is this place?” My Keeve… hahaha… “It’s my church!” More inquiries, “Why are you at church at 5:00 in the evening on a Wednesday?” My son explained, “I’m in the worship band and we have practice right now.”

Eventually they let him get out of the car, and questioned Keeve about the damage on the driver’s side door handle. He explained the vandalism that had taken place in October when someone tried to break in. Made me think we should possibly visit a chop-shop???

“Do not move this vehicle until you get a 3-day temporary license plate,” the cop instructed Keeve. Hence, the call home to Dad, that I didn’t know about, and the printing of the temporary plate, and my husband’s late arrival at church.

Who knew thugs steal license plates? Now we know. And storytelling lessons will commence with embellished details as a side option.

 

STOP! In the Name of the Law!

Tonight I was reminded of a story from my high school days which I gladly share at this time. It is a homeschool science lesson in the making, mixed with art and civics. Thank you for bringing this story to the forefront of today’s news, Connie, my partner in crime more than once in our late teen years.

It has escaped me where I obtained this gem of a fashion statement, but somehow I got my little 17-year-old hands on a pair of these stop sign sunglasses.

This is EXACTLY the pair that I chose to wear in high school. See how they have shatter-proof lenses? Safety first! See how it says for children 5 years or older. It should have said for children ages 5-15… let me explain.

The lenses on these beauties were green and they were quite dark, which aided my shielding of the bright California sunshine while donning them. One bright shiny day, I was cruising down El Camino Real in Sunnyvale, California (But not cruising at night on El Camino Real in Santa Clara….. that was naughty) minding my own business… wearing the above glasses… because I was fashion conscious. I’m sure I had on a red or white or royal blue Izod polo shirt with the collar turned up with a matching cherry red patent leather belt in the belt loops of my 501 Levi jeans. (Button fly! Rock on!)

Unusual, to be sure, the stoplights were out on El Camino that day! I was quite surprised that so many in a row were out… block after block. I approached each intersection with caution, stopped, looked both ways and proceeded with care.

Next thing I know there was an officer of the law flashing his blue lights at me in the rear view mirror. Odd. I had never seen them only flash blue. (Not that I had much experience being pulled over… ahem.) After pulling my car to the side of the road the nice police man came to chat with me. He asked why I was running all the red stop lights on El Camino. WHAT? “They were all out, officer! That is why I treated them like stop signs.”

Then I pulled off my awesome stop sign sunglasses and realized his patrol car WAS flashing red and blue… but I couldn’t see the red lights with the green lenses in my fashion eye wear. Figuring he would believe me as I made the discovery and explained it to him….. he simply stood there looking at me like I had used too much VO5 hairspray for too long in too small of a bathroom.

Finally, I handed him the glasses and offered, “See for yourself!” He did. He put them on, glanced around at his police car lights and the red street light in the next intersection, removed them and handed them back to me shaking his head.

The kind public servant did not give me multiple tickets for running multiple lights that day, but did instruct me to NEVER wear the stop sign sun glasses while driving! OKAY!

Here is the science lesson part of this story from physicsclassroom.com:

A pigment that absorbs a single frequency is known as a pure pigment.

Pigments absorb light. Pure pigments absorb a single frequency or color of light. The color of light absorbed by a pigment is merely the complementary color of that pigment.

And so, dear students, green lenses on fancy sunglasses shaped like stop signs absorb red traffic lights because green and red are complementary colors on the opposite sides of the color wheel. You cannot see red lights with these glasses on! Don’t try this at home!

Be safe! Don’t drive with green or red lenses! And there you have it, from the archives.