Susanne called to give me a blood sugar update.
"Well, he's been in the 200s today, but I think it's because he was so stressed out this morning."
It's the last week of school before summer vacation. No more tests. No more homework. What can possibly be stressing him out?
In a very reluctant confession mediated by his older sister, Charlie and Maeve outlined what went down earlier that day - retelling the events that left Charlie in a state of severe anxiety for roughly 24 hours.
Charlie decided it would be an interesting experiment to simultaneously pee in all the urinals in the school bathroom. Right down the line. He claims there were eight in all, but that seems a bit exaggerated. So basically it was squirt, next, squirt, next, squirt, next, etc. and then he went back and flushed all the urinals. Or maybe it was squirt/flush, squirt/flush. The details and timeline has become murky with each version of the story.
"Why Charlie?"
[mumbling shamefully] "It's fun."
But what came next would not be fun at all.
A scary announcement from the school's principal.
"Whoever is responsible for flooding the boys bathroom needs to come down to my office immediately!"
Could it have been Charlie? Is it possible the excessive squirting and flushing put a strain on the old elementary school pipes?
Well, he thought so. And he was an absolute mess over it. His blood sugars reflected that. Susanne and I felt really bad for the little violator. Charlie's a mischievous little kid in a playful way and he's done some really dumb things to satisfy his curiosity in his day, but he's not intentionally destructive. He was visibly shaking with fear and the thought of going back to school to face the consequences had him petrified.
Teaching Charlie that we don't commit a pee-and-run in our family, Susanne called the principal and delicately explained what Charlie had done. The principal said the only thing Charlie was guilty of was wasting a bit of water. The culprits had already turned themselves in. Phew!
"Wait! It's fun? So you've done this before?" I asked.
[sheepish nod in the affirmative]
"Charlie!"
"You don't do this when going #2, though, right Charlie?"
[silence]
"Charlie???"
