BEWARE, not a good night at casa msbelle.

So, hypothetically, if you were a manipulative sneaky kid who conned his overgenerous babysitter into buying him a DS game (for a DS you no longer have, natch) and mom said HELL NO, or something there abouts, and you got all huffy and had a fit, Where might you have hidden said DS game?

Mom has found the following - many candy wrappers hidden away, formerly unknown of DS game that must have been traded for hidden in book/craft cabinet, mom's i-touch that child stole out of her purse tonight in retaliation hidden in board game cabinet.

Or should mom just stop looking and consider it a lost cause that he will sneak to school and either sell for cash or trade for something else and just pay the dimwitted babysitter her money back while telling her AGAIN that no no no on buying the manipulative child anything that costs more than $5.

Thanks everyone for your sympathy today. I am now home waiting for tasty Thai food with a bourbon & ginger in hand.

For the record: I am not wearing red or plaid and have no intentions of driving anywhere tonight.

I was all excited, and then the whole thing was just room for me to list the other 11 people who (don't) live with me!

I know! I kept turning pages going "there must be something more for me to fill out!

Or should mom just stop looking and consider it a lost cause that he will sneak to school and either sell for cash or trade for something else and just pay the dimwitted babysitter her money back while telling her AGAIN that no no no on buying the manipulative child anything that costs more than $5.

I vote this. And then make yourself a bourbon & ginger.

Oh msbelle. Though I don't know that buying games without checking with the parent actually warrants reimbursement.

Or should mom just stop looking and consider it a lost cause that he will sneak to school and either sell for cash or trade for something else and just pay the dimwitted babysitter her money back while telling her AGAIN that no no no on buying the manipulative child anything that costs more than $5.

Oh jeez. I maybe vote for this one, but I am no parent.

For the record: I am not wearing red or plaid and have no intentions of driving anywhere tonight.

I don't know if Buffistas count as an alibi... but I bet we'll find that out for sure sooner or later.

ICompletelyRandomN, words cannot express how devastated I am that I never knew this remarkable person ever existed until four days after she died:

RIP Suzanne Beauclerk, Dowager Duchess of St. Albans

Dude! Her infancy was marked by the care of an amah who soothed her unruly brood with small doses of chloroform! She spent her childhood in a decaying villa, stomping grapes with the townspeople and storing her collection of live pythons on the nursery shelves while miniature owls nested on top of the wardrobe! She was recruited by British intelligence during WWII, but set to work at basic reporting as she was congenitally incapable of deception (and yet she had such an elfishly gleeful smile)! She is probably the only person on earth whom Graham Greene ever caused to dissolve into helpless giggles. She wrote memoirs to pay the bills and ran an art gallery that exhibited Mervyn Peake's sketches. Her husband was a descendant of Charles II and Nell Gwynn.

I just...I... Sigh. I fear I'm girlcrushing on a dead woman.

while telling her AGAIN that no no no on buying the manipulative child anything that costs more than $5.

I'm with Brenda. Especially since you said AGAIN. That's kinda one of those lessons people need to learn. And this is how.

Sorry you are still having such DS drama. Ugh.

Or should mom just stop looking and consider it a lost cause that he will sneak to school and either sell for cash or trade for something else and just pay the dimwitted babysitter her money back while telling her AGAIN that no no no on buying the manipulative child anything that costs more than $5.

This sounds the least crazy-making for mom. In my totally inexperienced opinion.

For the record: I am not wearing red or plaid and have no intentions of driving anywhere tonight.

Phew!