The Tube Heads

My name is Kim, and I'm a tube head. I love to watch TV. I don't even care if it's good TV. I just like to watch.

Some people refer to people like me as Tube Heads.

And I'm going to start referring to my son as Tube Head Jr.

Biscuit doesn't get to watch a lot of TV. He watches a show in the morning, then two shows in the evening. Altogether, it's about an hour a day (the shows on his channel are 20 minutes long).

Every once in a while, if I'm cooking dinner, and Jeff isn't home yet, I'll let Biscuit watch TV in my bedroom, just to keep him occupied and out of the way of the hot stove. And that's what happened this evening.

But as I put dinner in the oven, I realized that I'd have about 30 minutes of waiting time and thought it would be a good time to play.

Biscuit has been crazy for hide-and-go-seek for the past few weeks (or hide-and-go-seekety-seek as he's taken to calling it lately). So just as I closed the oven door, I turned around and started counting out loud. I got to about 8 before Biscuit caught on, then I heard the patter of his little feet running to a hiding place.

I have a closet in my kitchen that is under the stairs. My father-in-law, as one of his yearly projects, built shelves in there for me, and it left just enough room to walk in there and stand. And that's one of Biscuit's favorite hiding places. The funny thing is that I was standing about 6 feet away from him when he scampered into the kitchen, opened the closet door, walked in, turned on the light, and closed the door.

Nope. No way I could tell where he was!

So I made a big fuss about going into the bedroom to look for him, then walking into the dining room to look for him, then finally coming back to the kitchen to look for him. I looked under the table. I looked on the other side of the counter, keeping an out-loud running monologue the whole time. And finally, I said, "Oooo. I didn't think about the closet. I wonder if he's in there?" And as soon as I opened the door, he had this huge grin on his face like he had really pulled one over on me.

So then Biscuit said it was my turn to hide. He ran into the bedroom and started counting.

I thought it would be funny to hide in the same closet where Biscuit was. I figured either that would be the first place he looked, or he'd think that there's no way I'd hide in the same place he just came out of.

I was beginning to think the second part of that statement was true.

There I was, standing in the dark. Waiting ... and waiting ... and waiting ... and waiting.

The oven timer went off, and I finally had to come out of my hiding place.

I took dinner out of the oven, then walked into my bedroom to find Biscuit sitting on the end of the bed watching TV.

HE NEVER EVEN LOOKED FOR ME!

Tube Head Jr. got so wrapped up in whatever show was on, he forgot that we were playing.

"Hey!" I said, startling Biscuit. "Why didn't you come look for me? I was hiding from you!"

"But Mom," he said, "I thought we were done playing. I was watching TV."

"Well, you told me to go hide, and you counted to 20, so I thought you were looking for me," I said to him.

"Oh. Sorry Mom," he said.

And that was it. See if I play hide-and-go-seekety-seek with him anymore!