K And The Drinking

I got up on Saturday morning and made my toilet, as is the habit of many. Then, I sat on it and did a poo, nothing unusual there.

I meandered into the sitting room, which is combined with the kitchen area and drum practice area, of RD Towers and made myself a cup of tea. I used the pack of Sri Lankan tea bags. It's one of life's little dichotomies; the tea bags are Sri Lankan, I don't want to waste them and I want to be patriotic. Unfortunately they taste exactly 0.14 times as good as PG Tips pyramid tea bags. I know this because I've measured it.

So I'm working my way through the box of tea bags, wishing that I could throw them away and buy a box of proper PG Tips, knowing that such an act would probably make about fifteen tea pluckers redundant. I have a social conscience. Next time the chimps get my business though.

As I plunged into the golden nectar I opened my laptop and went to my usual places, ending up staring at my home page on the book. One of the first things to catch my eye was the status message of A, the fifteen year old. It had got about twenty comments from other people and it caused me great concern. The comments said things like

"What happened?"

"She must be in so much trouble"

The status said

"My little sister (that's K to you) got caught drinking"

You know K. She's smart and dangerous. It was only a matter of time before this happened but I hadn't expected it so soon.

I knew she had gone out to the cinema with friends on Friday night and guessed that she must have returned pissed and got in trouble.

As a person I was tempted to chuckle heartily at the situation and brush it off with humour and a good natured shrug. As a parent I wanted to tell K off, to make sure she didn't do this again for a while and that she kept on the straight and narrow. Then, as a divorced parent, the one who doesn't live with them, I wondered if I'd even get to officially find out about this. There was every chance that the girls and their mother would close shop, not telling me and keeping it amongst themselves.

And being a FB friend of them is a tricky business. JapSach's post about his mum on the book made me chuckle as I could totally relate to it from both sides; the child and the parent. It's a great means for me to keep a track of what the girls are doing, but if I do too much with the information I run the risk of being deleted as a friend, then having no further access to that side of their lives.

This situation made me decide that the last thing I should do was to ring up and say that I'd just seen this on Facebook and demand explanations and the like. They'd close ranks and I'd end up with nothing.

I called them and, after a few attempts, got an answer. I chatted with A, she told me nothing. I asked for K and was told that she was still in bed. "Hmmm... with a hangover" I thought, but didn't say, there was a definite element of A covering up for her little sister.

By midday K still hadn't been raised from her slumber. I texted her and got no response. Then I got a phone call from their mother. I expected a very serious "you need to talk to her about this" type of conversation. Instead their mother seemed to be amused.

"You'll never guess what happened" she said.

I told her that I probably would as I'd seen it on A's FB page. She told me the rest of the story. It went like this:

On Friday evening she'd come home from work to find their living room in a total and utter mess. There was paper all over the floor, evidence that someone had been cutting up paper and left the remnants everywhere. It was a shambles. A was the only child around and she grabbed her and told her off, to be told in believable tones that A wasn't responsible, that it was all down to K, who was out.

A little while later K waltzed back, plonked herself down in a chair and said nothing. Her mother said to her

"Well Miss, you're in serious trouble, what have you got to say about this then?"

K looked at her with a startled and scared look and, after a bit of hesitation, said

"I'm really sorry, I didn't mean it. I just tried a bit and hated it anyhow and then spat it out."

Her mother was confused, her sister was equally confused.

"You what?" said her mother.

"I just tried a mouthful from yours and didn't like it"

"Of what?"

K realised that there was something wrong at this point.

"Ermm, of your vodka bottle"

"I was talking about the mess in the front room"

"Oh" said a rather crestfallen K who now knew that not only was she in big trouble for a crime she had committed but she was also in deep doo doo for a crime that she'd just confessed to that hadn't been even uncovered.

I lost track after that, mostly because I was laughing too much. I agreed that I wouldn't say anything to K, as she was on the bus on her way to see me.

I couldn't resist a couple of jibes that afternoon, just to keep K on her toes. It was funny to watch her eyes, when I asked her if she'd like a beer or something, almost hearing the cogs turn in her devious head as she wondered how much I knew.

I must admit I was pleased that my initial fear, that she'd gone out and got drunk with her friends, was unfounded. In this case "caught drinking" meant that she'd had a swig of vodka and hated it.

The worry is the next time. K learns quickly and I'm sure the lessons from this episode will be most valuable to her.

By Sunday morning all evidence of the episode, the status on A's facebook page and the many comments, had mysteriously disappeared. I'm certain that K had protested to her sibling and, in a rare case, said sibling had felt pity and deleted the evidence.

Sometimes these sisters can stick together.