One afternoon not too long ago I had to drive over to Niceville to run some errands and I decided to grab a couple of geocaches while I was out.
The kids were with me and we picked up a few grab-n-go caches and then headed for one that I was really looking forward to.
The cache is named Arachnophobia and because I'm not scared of spiders but the kids are, and because I just can't help myself sometimes, I didn't tell them that this was obviously going to be a spider themed cache.
The cache was hidden in some woods behind an apartment complex so after finding a place to park we followed the GPS down a narrow trail.
The GPS beeped, meaning the cache was near, and I told the kids to start hunting.
They asked what kind of container it was and I told them I didn't know.
Because I didn't. I may have had an idea, but I didn't know for sure so technically I was telling the truth.
As soon as the Island Girl screamed I knew she'd found it.
It was tied to the tree with fishing wire and looked very realistic hanging there.
I reached up to take it down so I could sign the log that I knew was inside and the Youngest Island Boy freaked out.
He still remembers the spiders in the truck episode from last summer and the idea of me touching the fake spider was just too much for him.
He had to walk away because he said he couldn't watch me touch it - even though he knew it was plastic.
I had to bribe the Oldest Island Boy with a candy bar so he would hold it while I took a picture.
Meanwhile the Island Girl is looking at me funny and she finally says "You don't seem very surprised by this cache. You must have known it was a spider!"
I laughed and told her that I had an idea it would be but that I wasn't positive.
She wasn't buying it and declared me to be an evil woman who enjoys torturing her kids by dragging them through the woods and making them find plastic spiders with no warning.
Sigh. She's on to me.
All three kids were glaring at me and I decided to come clean.
"Ok. The cache is named Arachnophobia so I had a pretty good idea that there was going to be a spider involved" I tell them.
Shouts of "You're a horrible person" and "What kind of mother does this?" followed.
I let them rant and rave for a minute and then I smiled and said "This is called payback you little monsters. Do you remember the plastic snake you rigged to fall on my head when I opened the outside trash can? Do you remember the plastic snake you hid in the flower bed you knew I was getting ready to weed? Do you remember the giant plastic cockroach you hid under my pillow? I warned you that one day I would get you back - so now you can consider yourselves got."
Silence followed.
Then the Oldest Island Boy looked at his brother and said "Hey! This means we have a clean slate now so we can start messing with her all over again."
I may be ahead at the moment but I don't think this war is over yet LOLLabels: Done
