Building a Mystery

Where is the Mystery Machine when you need it? Scooby? Shaggy? I have snacks!

Seriously, it was quite a puzzler, let me tell you.

I walked into my bathroom and there was mascara smeared all over the bathroom counter and someone had taken my eyeliner and scribbled all over various parts of the bathroom. What an oddball thing to do. Being the scatterbrained mother than I am, I tickled my brain trying to remember if I did that. After a few moments of painful recollection, I realized it was of course, not me.

My first suspect was Madelyn. She has in the past gotten into my makeup and made a mess that you would have fainted over. Seriously. I was pretty sure she had learned her lesson on that one, but she was still suspect number one on my list. She's a sneaky one, but she's not a liar. In fact, she's painfully honest most times. So I summoned her to the scene of the crime. I pointed out the mess and she looked rather puzzled at me and said "I didn't do that mom, I swear." I looked into her eyes and I actually believed her. I can tell when Maddie is lying- Exhibit A: The leg shaving incident.

This lead to suspect number 2 - Dylan. Seems rather odd for a 12-year-old to not only get into his mother's makeup but also to make a mess with it. Now, I am not going to call Dylan a liar, but he is much more practiced at it than Maddie and I have a more difficult time telling whether he is telling a stretched truth or not. Since the pre-teen hormones have recently taken over the controls in his brain and I've seen him lately do things that really made me scratch my head in wonder, I figured it was entirely possible that he did it. So, I summoned suspect number 2 to the scene of the crime. Of course, he denied it.

Barring a lie detector test, I had no proof that either of them were actually guilty, but considering that I didn't do it, and it was fairly unlikely that Joel did it, it was clearly one of the two standing in front of me - both of whom were denying it.

So I decided to pull a switch on them. This is where it gets fun. I blamed their father. I figured if either of them had done it, they wouldn't want to see me get angry at their father for something that they did. HAHA, boy did I underestimate them both. They both just kind of shrugged their shoulders and walked away. I guess they figured Dad would be in less trouble than they would.

Just as mysteriously as the mess appeared - it disappeared. The culprit - whomever it was - cleaned up their own mess without so much as a word. So somewhere in my mission, my detective skills failed me, but my mother-guilt-issuing skills prevailed.

Of course, there is still the possibility that there is a ghost in the house that did it and then felt bad for getting the kids in trouble so they cleaned it up.

I wouldn't put money on that one though. My money's on Dylan. Especially since I found the washrag that was used to clean up the mess in his laundry basket this morning. At this point, if it were Maddie I would have to give her mad props for planting evidence in Dylan's room.

Either way, no one is in trouble. The mystery is solved (sort of) and the mess is cleaned up.