The Vandal Formally Known as Tucker

Still in the works is a huge blog about my awesome and "supermassive" Twilight tour of Forks, Washington...but this is a story within that story.

I'd had this trip planned to Forks, WA for several weeks and I was SOOO looking forward to it, for many reasons. We (my friend Stephanie and I) were going to do whatever we wanted, when we wanted and we had no one to answer to. She just graduated from high school and she answers to her parents and I have two kids that are the boss of me. I think we both needed this break. So I leave my house at 8am on Wednesday morning with high hopes, sunshine and a full tank of gas. I was on my way to get Stephanie from her house. One pit stop and I arrived at her place without incident. We immediately stepped off the deep end into the "Twilight Zone". We had matching Twilight shirts, a life-sized cardboard cutout of Edward and glow in the dark vampire teeth. (please keep all snickering and jokes to yourself. We know we dorked out, we don't need to be told) We leave Stephanie's house on a mission: camera batteries, camera memory card and snacks= Walmart. We quickly gather our necessities and bust out of there...but not without a trip to the Starbucks across the parking lot. We get set with coffees and scones....LET THE ROAD TRIP BEGIN!!! FORKS OR BUST....famous last words....

10:30am

Ring, ring...ring, ring...ring, ring.... "Hello?"

Matt: Hey, how are you?

Tami: Um, fine...great. We just got some coffee and we are heading out of town. What's going on?

M: I have something awesome to tell you.

T: Awesome like, yeah good, or awesome like I really don't want to know?

M: Well I'll let you decide. So, Tucker and I were in the backyard and I had to go in to the bathroom. When I came back I went outside to check on Tucker and I couldn't find him anywhere. I was yelling and yelling for him and I started to really freak out. He wasn't in the backyard at all.

**side note** "our" (Matt's mom's yard) yard has no fence. He could leave the backyard from any direction and end up either down on our street or behind the house in a plethora of winding neighborhood streets. NOT my favorite.

M (cont): So I ran out the front door yelling for him and luckily he was out there. But. He was drawing. With a sharpie. On my Mom's car.

**side note** Matt's Mom drives a 2008 RX350 LEXUS.

T: Come on Matt. Seriously? Are you joking? Tell me you're joking. Right? ...Matt?

M: No, serious. He drew all over it.

T: (silence...stunned...SCARED I'M GOING TO HAVE TO GO HOME!!! NOOOOOOO!!! I'M SUPPOSED TO BE GOING TO FORKS NOW! AAAAAHHHH!!!) Um, do you want me to come home?

M: Nope

T: Is Tucker OK? Did you hurt him.

M: He's in timeout. Probably for the rest of the day.

T: What did your Mom say?

M: Oh, she's in the shower. She doesn't know yet.

**I hear Michele in the background on the phone**

T: Well, that sounds like your Mom. Good luck with that. Call me back!!!

This is where you hear the rubber meet the road. We got the hell out of town as fast as humanly possible. Wishing I had vampire skills to just run, run faster than I could even be driving, just to get out of there to make sure that this little "incident" didn't drag me back into motherhood when I was supposed to be living my old carefree life again for just 48 hours.

Matt used some rubbing alcohol to get the Sharpie off the car. I'm now concerned that the paint will melt off soon, but he seems to think this is an acceptable solution. So far, no paint damage, but if we get some I'll be sure to blog about that too. Tucker has all his limbs in tact and doesn't seem to be psychologically damaged from all the yelling that I'm sure went on after Matt's discovery. AFTER the "art" (or graffiti, however you look at it) was removed, Michele thought it was funny...like only a Grandma could.

When Michele asked Tucker why he drew on Grandma's car he said, "Because you like black. Black is your favorite." Which only makes this even funnier because it's TRUE! Her favorite color is black and she wears it often. He was just being thoughtful, right? And I do have to say that his art/drawing/writing is evolving and it looks great. I'm really proud of him. I just wish he could display his talent with washable crayons and old fashioned construction paper.

The VERY NEXT DAY..... Day Two, Supermassive Twilight Trip: This is the text I get from Matt at 11:18am. **The only editing is due to language.

"Tucker just tried to take a sh*& in the backyard. It turned out to be a total mess. He said he wanted to be like Bo (our dog). I heard screaming and went outside to see every fly in the area swarming his a**"

I'm not even going to comment on this...I'm only going to say this...SERIOUSLY?