Just before bedtime tonight, S came running down the stairs in clothes completely different than a) the ones he wore to school b) the ones he changed into after school (why?) or c) the pajamas he was supposed to have put on for bed.
He was wearing a brown Chewbacca shirt with brown sweats, and desperately searching for his lightsaber. He blew by me, as I was folding laundry, headed for the playroom. He ignored the heaps of crap on the floor and humped on to the couch, removed one of the cushions, peered into the behind-the-sofa-cushion chasm of mystery and looked disappointed. "What's up?" I ask, suspiciously. "Where's my lightsaber?" S asks, accusingly. First of all, what do I want with a lightsaber. Second of all, what kind of psycho specific memory recalls that a lightsaber was at one point between the sofa cushions and the place where popcorn kernels go to die? Third of all, why does a third costume change of the day require lightsabers?
This development will require more questioning.
"Um. Why do you need a lightsaber?"
"OK. If you don't have the lightsaber, do you have a brown marker?"
Trying to squelch the panic in my voice, I start mental math. Brown outfit, brown marker, lightsaber. What do these things have in common? Brown....outfit....lightsaber....marker? Outfit...lightsaber...brown...marker? Is he a Jedi UPS delivery guy? What the hell was going on here?
"Why do you need a brown marker?"
"I need to draw a beard."
Alarm sounding.
"On what?"
"Me."
"OK. You see, we SO don't need to be doing that. Why do you need a beard?"
"Who am I?"
Trick question. Jedi UPS delivery guy is probably not the answer. But Jedi has to be right. Nobody but comic book nerds and Jedi carry lightsaber. And poor S hasn't figured out just how not far Star Wars is going to take him with the ladies.
"A Jedi?"
"Which Jedi?"
Jedi with a beard. Not Samuel L. Jackson. Alec Guiness? Beard. Ewan Macgregor? Beard. Liam Neeson? Beard. Shit. No help here. Random guess.
"Obi Wan?"
"Yes. The brown is like the cape and the pants. And I need a beard and my lightsaber. I want to show E and Dad."
"Great costume. They'll love it. Without the brown marker, right?" Slight threat in the voice. "And after they see it, the costume goes back in the drawer because it's clean, right?"
"Yah, yah. ya...." the voice trails off as he goes racing through the kitchen in search of brother, dad, and lightsaber.
I go back to folding laundry, and realize that tomorrow I will be folding Obi Wan's worn for 2 minutes sweatpants and teeshirt. Because there is no Force in the galaxy that is going to get that outfit back in the drawer.
