Maybe The Easter Bunny Ate My Pants

It's a mystery. It's a miracle. My son's school uniform pants have vaporized. Yep, disappeared. Right before our eyes . . . well, almost.

It all may have started when he had a day off this past Monday. Since it was a day of civil service, a day to be a productive citizen, I called upon my 9 year-old son to clean his room. Nothing makes a 9 year-old a more productive part of society than a clean room. Not only does it have the immediate and obvious benefits, it also contributes to a feeling a harmony in the community/family that cannot be understated.

However.

Now we are embroiled in an unsettling mystery. A struggle between fantasy and reality.

There are no uniform pants.

This will happen when a 9 year-old is sent to his room with the vague instructions of, "Clean it." What constitutes clean to an adult, namely orderliness, constitutes unnecessary compulsion to a 9 year-old. No, to a 9 year-old, clean is more a matter of "out of sight, out of mind." Those pants won't be a problem any longer. They have been removed from the back of the chair and put . . . well, let's not get bogged down in the details. The chair looks clean, doesn't it? Okay then.

Not until Wednesday morning, did the mystery reveal itself. There are no uniform pants. Anywhere.

Now, you and I know they are somewhere. Pants don't just disappear. Pants don't just vaporize. But my son's big brown innocent eyes reflect the honest belief that they did just disappear. To him, that is the most logical explanation. Not that they are stuffed under the bed. Not that they got pushed to the back of the closet. Not that they got jammed into the emptiest, yet least logical, dresser drawer. Nope. That is far more far-fetched in my son's mind. The pants have ceased to exist. He is sure of it and is at peace with it.

Isn't it interesting -- I'm using a positive word here, did you notice? -- how our children are so much more open to these possibilities than we are? To use a more accurate word, how about "bizarre." Why and how can they honestly believe that pants just de-materialize? I mean, it's not like the adults in their lives have fed them a steady diet of the mystical. No.

There is no big, white bunny that comes to their house every spring, lets himself in, and leaves behind baskets of candy and toys.

No one ever snatches their lost teeth from under their pillows in exchange for crisp new dollar bills.

No one ever took them to see a kindly old man dressed in a furry red suit who takes note of their every wish and does his best to deliver a few weeks later. Nawwww.

I don't know where these kids get these ideas. Pants . . . disappearing? Now that's hard to believe.  Or is it.