I went to Los Angeles this weekend to see a concert.

In the car on the way down, I get a call from my mother. Call me. K. is in trouble.

Why, why, why did I think I could squeak out a night off?

So I call and the story isn't clear. Something about K. and Lauren, the little girl across the street, going door to door to ask the neighbors for money. K. told my mom she was at Lauren's house. Lauren told her father, Joe, that she was at our house. In fact they were apparently panhandling at doorsteps up and down our block.

They got busted when Joe discovered a $5 bill in Lauren's room and asked her where she got the money. Lauren tried to stammer a lie, which didn't fly, so he worked it out of her that she and K. got the money from a man up the street.

Joe was understandably alarmed and came to my mom's house to interrogate K. (Divide and conquer). K., who is only 6, broke down and confessed immediately that they had lied about their whereabouts in some strange scheme to get money.

Now, Joe's reaction is the same as any parent's would be if they learned a grown man had given 7- and 6-year-old girls cash for no apparent reason.  So he angrily marched over to the man's house to return the $5 and asked him not to give his daughter money again.

Through all of this my cell phone is ringing off the hook with my mom offering updates as information trickles in. With each call, the story is getting worse, and I'm freaking out. Is this a pedophile paying my daughter for nude photos or something? How long has this money thing been going on? Who is this mysterious man up the street?

My imagination is running wild, and I can't take it anymore so I tell my mom to go across the street and get Joe's number so I can call him and hear the story first-hand.

Five minutes later I call Joe. The story has changed yet again.

The kids weren't panhandling. They were peddling jewelry. Some plastic bracelets of Lauren's, and K. contributed some hair barretts to the enterprise. Most of the neighbors politely declined the sales pitch.

Only one sucker was stupid enough to pay $5 for a plastic Barbie bracelet and some hair barretts.

I guess he was trying to be nice, Joe offered by way of explanation, since he knows you and apparently has met K. before. Some guy who works with you, I think?

And suddenly it's all clear to me.

A co-worker friend of mine lives three houses down.

I was so mortified I could have crawled under a car and died. I called my friend to beg his forgiveness and he was very gracious.

K. is grounded for a week.

 

larger view

K., at 6, is not allowed to touch electric outlets, so when I caught her plugging and unplugging an electric fan because she enjoyed watchnig the fan blades spin and stop, spin and stop, I scolded and punished her.

As she is wont to do, she flung herself on her bed dramatically and shouted, "You're mean!" before commencing her signature sulk.

I was in my bedroom when J., 3, sauntered over to his wounded sister on the bed and said, "Is Mommy mean?"

"Yes!" K cried.

J. then headed over to my doorway, struck a pretty impressive Kung Fu Panda pose (he hasn't seen the movie but loves the commercials) and swiped at the air.

"You're dead, Mommy," he announced solemnly before returning to console K.

"Mommy's dead. It's OK."

My son, the hero.

Won't he be fun as a teenager?

The day before yesterday K. found a black widow spider in the garage. She and J. were gaping: "oooo, big black spider!"

I wasn't thinking "dangerous poisonous creature" as I headed over. I was more in, "Ick, yucky, get away" mode when I sauntered over from where I was working in the garden to have a look. But although I am not an entomologist, I know a scary bug when I see one, and black widows are decidedly scary looking.

I went inside and Googled for pictures to confirm the guess. Photo was dead on (pun intended). So I went back out with a can of Raid and blasted the sucker, which had made a nice big web on the side of my $2,000 leather couch. (I know I should get it out of the 100-degree garage but I'm still in denial about living with my mother. It comforts me to know I will have furniture when I move out).

After the beast was slain, I sat the kids down and explained that this particular spider was bad, very bad, and if they see one again they are to run away and tell a grown up as soon as possible.

K., the thrill seeker, then offers that her science day camp had a tarantula as the "animal of the week" not long ago, brought over by an employee of CALM, our pitiful excuse for a zoo here. Everybody got to pet the tarantula, and apparently this spider handler didn't bother to explain to the very young children stroking the furry thing that it's generally not a good idea to pet tarantulas encountered in the wild. K. wanted to know why it was OK to pet tarantulas and not black widows.

Made a mental note to ask the director of that program to provide a little context next time they drop dangerous critters in my child's midst.

Meanwhile, the pesticide people are coming to treat the garage today. Not sure what the environmental PC meter says about spraying mists of poison all over a couch I hope to sit on again some day, not to mention the stacks of boxes of books lining the garage walls. Probably there are spider eggs in those boxes and I will open up a book one day to find some big black monster crawling around on the page.