Whose fault is it anyway....

I learned a very significant lesson yesterday, Ipod Nanos and Motorola Razor cell phones do NOT work to their full capacity once they have been cleaned in the washing machine.  It was never intentional for me to wash either of these items, which both belong(ed) to Olie.  We arrived home from Father's Day celebrations at about 11:30 pm on Sunday night. I needed to take the boys to meet their mom on Monday morning, so I had them gather all the clothes that they had brought from her house that were still dirty and put them in the laundry room. There was a pile of clothing on top of the washing machine, so I washed them.  Monday morning as I was changing the laundry loads I realized that I had neglected to see the basket with clothes from Lucy's (their mom) house in it.  In a panic I poured the clothes into the washer that was already half filled with water and towels.  No, I didn't take time to check the pockets.  No I didn't take time to separate colors...I was under a strict time frame in which these clothes would be pushing to be cleaned and dried within.  As I listened for the washer to finish, I had this nagging feeling that I should have checked the pockets.  As I was moving the load from the washer to the dryer, it was obvious why...there was the Nano, mocking me from on top of the towels at the bottom of the load.  I honestly felt sick to my stomach and that was before I found the phone.  I immediately called D before I told Olie what I had done to the items that he had worked so hard for.  The Nano he purchased with his own money.  Money that he had been saving from birthdays and Christmas and doing chores around the house.  The phone was a reward for working hard and being on time to school when he was struggling on wanting to be there... In one brief moment I destroyed both!  D, in what I can only assume was a lapse of judgment, reprimanded me for not checking pockets before starting the load.  I defended myself by telling him that at 11, a child should know that he needs to check his own pockets before throwing the clothes in the hamper (and yes I know that at 32 a parent should know that an 11 year doesn't always do what they should do either---obviously neither do I).  I decided I needed to just break the news to Olie.  So, I marched upstairs to the family room where the boys had spent the night.  I announced the need for them to wake up and get ready immediately, and in the same breath told Olie that his Nano and phone were clean and dead.  I hated breaking his little heart and was so sure that he, like his silly father, would be angry at me.  He surprised me though.  He responded with, "Awe...I should have made sure I checked my pockets before I threw them in the hamper."  I knew I loved this child!  I told him we were both at fault and then we rushed through the house looking for an old cell phone that would accept his SIM.  The reason we so desperately needed to find a phone is because without Olie's cell phone then D is at the mercy of his still-bitter-4-years-after-the-divorce-has-been-final-even-though-both-are-remarried ex-wife.  Without Olie's phone, she decides when and if she wants to allow the boys to talk to their dad.  It can get pretty ridiculous, since the boys aren't allowed to call D from either the home phone or her cell phone, so he has to hope one of the boys are around to answer the home phone when he calls. Finding a back up phone was of the utmost importance. Luckily we found one, an old razor even.  Which really came in handy since the boy's mom called us on Olie's phone 10 minutes after we arrived at the meeting spot (which we arrived 20 minutes early) to tell us she would be 30 minutes late.  If you have ever spent 50 minutes with 4 kids in a gas station parking lot, then you can feel my pain right now.

Payback for D's reprimanding (which he did apologize for) came this morning though.  D couldn't find the key to his car.  I loving pulled it out of the washer.  He had washed his jeans last night and didn't check his pockets.  And, through some sort of miracle, the Nano works today, the phone, however, is still DOA...poor little phone.