Just Call me Cassandra

My son does not believe me. What’s more, he ignores me when I offer sage advice. Crazy kid.

I was helping him hang his Bumblebee poster tonight. We first had to convince him that having a Bumblebee poster was acceptable in his “Optimus Prime is the leader so he’s the best—nay, the only—Transformer deserving of my adulation” attitude. This poster came with the insanely impossible for mere mortals to figure out Optimus that Robert got for the boy’s birthday. It is, of course, a tool to sell more Transformers as it’s a traditional ‘poster’ on one side and has baseball-card-style photos of a dozen other Autobots on the back.

So Harrison asks me to hang the poster on his wall above the head of his bed. No problem. I look at it (honestly, it was the first time I had actually had the thing in my hands) and make note of the front vs. back side aspect of it. I realized this is going to cause problems. I know things.

“Honey, which side do you want out? Bumblebee or the side with all the other characters?”

“Bumblebee is the awesomest! I definitely want him on the wall!” (He’s a tough sell, but once he converts, there is no going back….)

“You’re sure you don’t want the side with a whole bunch of Transformers facing out?”

“Nope, Bumblebee it is.”

“What about if we don’t put it on the wall? What if we just put it on your desk and you can look at either side you want whenever you want?” Genius, if I do say so.

“No, I need Bumblebee on my wall.”

At this point, he’s told me a minimum of four times that he doesn’t want the multiple character side; he wants Bumblebee.

Okay.

I pin the poster to the wall.

I don’t get the fourth pin completely in the wall before the boy says, “Wait Mom! I can’t see the other characters!”

Really?

Anyone want to hear about a Trojan horse that’s going to be the ruin of us all?