"That's it," I snapped. "No more TV for you today."
"What!" he exclaimed. "What am I gonna do after dinner?"
"Read a book?" I suggested. "Play some basketball?"
Punishing Mark is like clearing the cache on your Internet browser--you may just want to clear away the last troublesome URL, but you also clear out all the other items cached in the memory, too. As soon as I took away the TV, he walked around the house with a blank look, complaining there was nothing to do. He couldn't think of one thing.
But I wasn't being punished. So a couple hours later, while Mark was getting out of the shower, I turned on the TV.
A commercial came on for a new sandwich. It looked like this:
"Man, you'd love that sandwich," I said to Mark, as he entered the dining room. "It's made on a Hawaiian roll."
"I love Hawaiian rolls!" Mark said. He licked his lips.
"I know," I said.
He stood there for a moment, watching me, then asked, "Does it look really good?"
"Yep," I said. I rewound the commercial. "See for yourself."
Mark stood in front of the TV. Then he turned to me with the biggest grin--which confused me, because I didn't think he'd like the sandwich that much.
But it wasn't the food he was smiling about.
"Ha!" he said. "You said I couldn't watch any TV tonight--but I tricked you into letting me watch!" Then he laughed and laughed, very proud of himself.
"Dammit!" I said. He totally did trick me. I still can't believe I set myself up like that!
Oh, well. We all have occasional parenting losses. Mark wasn't laughing as hard when I flipped mine back around to a parenting win.
"Good night," I said, kissing his wet hair. "Sleep tight."
"I still have ten minutes till bedtime," he complained.
"Tricked you," I said. "Now get outta here, kid."
Off he went, calling out, "Fine, but I still win! I tricked you first!"
I giggled, because he did trick me. Little stinker!
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