The (Suspicious) Death of Swinger

When you're a working mother whose sons are a decade apart, life can be interesting. There were a couple of summers when my older son would babysit his little brother, and it was a huge help to me financially. The teenager, however, thought it was a nothing but a headache, and he swore he would never have children of his own because of it. In fact, it's taken him twenty years to make me a grandmother, although that's not such a bad thing in my opinion.

Anyway, those summers of babysitting were full of adventures, antics, and phone calls to me at work. This is the story of one of those calls.

Late one morning, Jonathan called me at work to say, in a very droll voice, that four-year-old Jordan was upset and needed to talk to his mommy. Of course, my mind was skipping from one disaster scenario to the next with occasional stops at the not-so-huge scenes that involved a simple “My favorite cartoon isn’t on!” Nothing I could imagine, however, prepared me for what followed.

Jordan was quickly put on the phone with me, where he proceeded to sob, huff and stumble through some unintelligible mash of words. All I understood was, “Jonathan … killed … Swinger … dead…” I knew Jonathan wasn’t dead because he was the one who had called, so I did the only thing I could think of – told Jordan to put his brother back on the phone.

I asked Jonathan what had his poor little brother in hysterics, and he told me that Swinger, Jordan’s beloved stuffed monkey and best friend, had committed suicide by hanging himself from the ceiling fan in the dining room. I did what any mother would and told Jonathan I wasn’t buying that story and asked him why he was torturing his brother that way. “It’s not me, Mom. Honest! Swinger was depressed, and he killed himself.” Yeah, yeah, yeah, so take him down and put your brother on.

I tried to console Jordan. I told him Swinger wasn’t really dead, his brother was just playing a nasty joke, but the poor little boy would have none of it. Swinger was spinning around the ceiling, so he must be dead. Wait … Swinger’s spinning? Put your brother back on.

Okay, so the stuffed monkey was depressed, hung himself from the ceiling fan and then managed to turn the fan on??? No, Swinger just hung himself. He started whirling around when Jonathan flipped the light switch to get a better look. Good Lord! Turn off the fan, take down the monkey and put your brother on.

I believe this is about the point where all work in the office around me ceased. Everyone was too busy laughing to get much done anyway.

So here’s the deal, Jordan. Your brother is to take Swinger down and fix you some lunch. How’s that? No deal. Swinger was still twirling. *sigh* Put your brother on.

Jonathan, seriously, take down the monkey and fix your brother some lunch. “Shouldn’t we wait for the coroner?”

I’m pretty sure I started banging my head on the desk at that point.

No, there’s no need to wait for the coroner. I told your brother you didn’t really kill his monkey. *blah, blah, blah* “But I didn’t kill him. He killed himself.” Stuffed monkeys don’t kill themselves!!! “They do if they’re depressed.” Why would a stuffed monkey be depressed? “He was spending too much time cooped up inside with Jordan.” Please, please … just take down the monkey. “Okay, but we should probably wait for the coroner.” Put your brother on.

Jordan, your brother is taking down the monkey. He’s fine. Try to calm down. Eat your lunch. Don’t try to get even or anything like that. Just behave until I get home. Etc., etc. etc. Now put your brother on, so I can finish this up and get back to work.

Is the monkey down? Good. Fix your brother some lunch, and try to behave until I get home. Please. I’m going to attempt to get some work done.

It was a while before the office got over that one.