I Gotta Take This

So my son has an imaginary friend. But he only talks to him on the non-working cell phone we gave him. So we're not all that concerned about it. And come to think of it, he's not entirely imaginary. His name is Eric. And he's loosely based on the recruiter that helped me land my new job.

A couple of months ago, I was getting a lot of calls from my recruiter. And Andrew witnessed the same scenario play out each time Eric called. I would look at my phone and excuse myself by saying, "Oh, it's Eric. I'm gonna step out for a minute." Then I would go to the next room and talk for a minute and come back. And this happened with enough frequency for a few weeks that Andrew picked up on the trend. So he started acting like he was on the phone with Eric, too. And he continued doing that even after I stopped getting calls from Eric. So that's what I mean when I say his friend isn't entirely imaginary. It's just that the conversations are imaginary.

So yesterday, my wife was trying to get Andrew to clean up some toys. And she was getting frustrated because Andrew kept taking phone calls from Eric instead of cleaning up. So she finally gave him an ultimatum. She told him it was his last chance to put the phone down and clean up before he received punishment.

So Andrew rolled his eyes, turned away from my wife, and said clearly into the phone, "I gotta go. She's about to yell as loud as she can." Then he tossed the phone onto the couch and cleaned up his toys. Then he got curious about where Mommy had gone and why there was so much noise coming from the kitchen. Because my wife quickly left the room in a fit of uproarious laughter. And once again, Andrew evaded punishment.