BUSTED

The only television we have on the main floor of our house is a little 13-inch one in our kitchen. We do not have one in our family room up here because when we finished our basement, I decided we'd put the main TV down there for the kids and make the main floor television-free.

Each of the kids has a television in their rooms, which I know makes us lousy indulgent parents.

Commence with food throwing now.

So then. Last night, I was really looking forward to watching the series finale of MONK because I've always loved that show. LOVE. IT. I was unable to watch most of this season because of football concession duties.

*sigh* The things we sacrifice for our children.

The main TV in the basement was occupied by our daughter and some friends, so I decided I was going to sneak into Blake's room and watch MONK on his television.

So after wrestling practice I quizzed him a little more intensely about his plans for the evening:

Hang out with Drew, eat somewhere, go to see Blind Side at ten.

"So, you won't be home 'til around midnight, correct?"

"Yeah, prolly."

So at eight o'clock, Paul and I went into his room and totally hi-jacked his television. I even brought an extra pillow in an propped myself on his bed.

That kid has a pretty good situation going on in there.

About twenty minutes into the show, we heard car doors slam, then a key in the front door.....

Then two teenage boys walking into our house.

Paul and I looked at each other.

"What are they doing here?"

"He promised me he'd be gone until midnight?"

"Why can't we teach our kids to stay out all night?"

"He's totally ruining my MONK farewell....!"

So I met Blake at the bottom of the steps and told him that Dad and I were watching MONK in his room because we had no place else to watch it.

"No, no, no, no....MOOOOM-uh! We have these games we rented and we need to play them before the movie at ten. Seriously, I'm gonna have to ask you to get out of my room. This is just wrong."

"But, Blake, I made you brownies. I set aside a torpedo sandwich for you guys. Look! FOOD! It's only forty more minutes...You said you'd be gone. I thought I could count on you to be gone all evening."

"Please, mom. We need to be in there"

Well, seeing the urgency of his timeline and his obligations, I relented and told Paul we had to clear out.

So we moped down to the kitchen and tried to cuddle on a bar stool in front of the television. (We didn't go to Kayla's room because her TV is much smaller, and we knew we'd likely be interrupted in there too. These kids just keep finding us.)

In an attempt to make things more romantic, I did offer to turn on a stove burner so we'd at least have a fire going while we watched TV on our bar stool.

The good news is the ending of MONK was wonderful.

The bad news? We are buying a television for the upstairs family room after Christmas.