How to Handle a Gun

As parents, we worry about everything. All parents know this. We worry that we're not worrying about our kids enough. And we worry that we're worrying about them too much. There's simply no escape and not worrying is never an option. Case in point: one night about a year ago, Raegan rushed upstairs to our bedroom, in tears. She had been going through our younger teenage son's bag and had found something she needed me to look at right away. With two high-schoolers in the house, she could have found anything, and it wouldn't have surprised me: a nip of whiskey, a dick pic, a shiv.

This time, she found a gun.

"I was just cleaning out Gus's bag," she said, "when I found it."

She reached in the bag and pulled out a green plastic squirt gun.

"Ha, ha," I said, "Very funny."

I figured my wife was making a comedic callback to the time I pulled a similar prank on her a few years ago, back when our youngest was about six: I told Raegan I found something disturbing in Sadie's bag. A syringe, I said, wiping away a fake tear, and then placed the sparkly plastic Doc McStuffins syringe in her hand.

Well played, Raegan!

Only this time, she wasn't laughing. Her tears were genuine.

I said, "Maybe they're playing assassin at school? We did that one year. The entire senior class was running around, shooting each other with squirt guns. It was awesome."
"They don't do things like that anymore, Steven. You know that."
"Oh yeah. Right. I don't get it, then. What's the problem?"
"Smell it."

It smelled like plastic.

"Not the gun," Raegan said, shaking her head incredulously. "What's inside it."

I shrugged and squirted my hand. It smelled vaguely like alcohol.

"Why would this be in his bag?" Raegan said, tearing up, "Do you think he's walking around school taking shots between classes?"
"He could be squirting it into other people's mouths," I said. "That's kind of genius, actually. Maybe he charges people for squirts? Can you picture it? Gus walking down the hall going 'pew! pew! pew!' I wonder if he takes Venmo."

"I bet you he saw a TikTok on it."

Noah, our older and less impulsive teen entered the kitchen.

"What's going on?" he said.
"Taste this," Raegan said, squirting Noah in the mouth.
"What the hell!?" Noah said. "You can't just squirt someone like that!”
"Never mind," Raegan said. "Does that taste like alcohol to you?"
"I think so," Noah said.
"Now you taste it," Raegan said, squirting me in the mouth.
"Ack!" I said.
"Well?"
"I didn't get a big sampling, but I'm pretty sure it's booze. Hit me again."

She shot me a few more times. I smacked my lips. Acerbic. Cheap but not offensive. Hints of 151.

Raegan and I mulled what an appropriate response would be. For one, we would have to start locking up our alcohol. That much was certain. Also, there would need to be a punishment of some kind, though in all honesty, we never punish our kids anymore. Extending his downtime would likely have no affect as he'd figured out how to circumnavigate Apple's parental controls years ago. Should we ground him? Did parents still do that? Somehow, keeping him from seeing his friends seemed too cruel. Should we take away his iPhone altogether? That might kill him.

I admit, as a parent, it's likely I suffer from too much empathy. Instead of getting mad, I remember back on all the things I did when I was his age—or didn't do. The irony is that despite the fact I hung out with a lot of (almost exclusively with) stoners in high school, I didn't drink or use drugs. I remained a teetotaler even in college (ZooMass in the 80's!). Eventually, this wore off. But the fact remains that I regret it. I regret always being the outsider, the only straight-edge kid at the punk party. I regret being too anxious to let myself go. I feel bad about not smoking with my bandmates. Though everyone always respected my decision. I can't recall a time I was ever mocked or even felt pressured to partake. But when I look back on it, I wonder why I was such a stickler about abstaining. Was I worried about keeping my brain healthy since my big brother is severely autistic and my little sister suffers from Fragile X Syndrome? Was it that I felt somehow susceptible? Or was it just that I worried too much about things in general? In any case, what I'm saying is I want Gus to enjoy his childhood more than I let myself enjoy mine.

But none of this really matters since we pretty much missed the window on punishing our children. We may even be past the point of parenting. Too old to bother. Kids too old for it to matter. And anyhow life is too short to make such a fuss about. Particularly now that the whole world is on fire. So, drink up, I say! Smoke 'em if you got 'em!

Still, we would have to talk to Gus. We would have to assert our disappointment at his indiscretion and acknowledge his indifference. We would tell him not to do it again and pretend we believed he planned to heed our words. Finally, we would explain how much trouble the two of us could get in if other parents found out our son was shooting them up with alcohol in school. We would hope our message sunk in, but we weren't getting our hopes up.

When Gus came home from wherever he'd been, Raegan was waiting for him, gun in hand.

"Gus Brykman," she said. "You have some explaining to do."
"Seriously?" Gus said. "I literally just walked in the door!"
"Don't play dumb," she said, brandishing the weapon. "We know you filled this with alcohol. We all tasted it. Now, fess up!"
"You tasted it?" Gus said. "Mom, it's hand sanitizer!"

Suddenly, everything made sense. Of course it was hand sanitizer. We'd all forgotten COVID was still a thing. I Googled how much hand sanitizer you would have to swallow for it to kill you. From what I could tell it looked like we would live.

"Oh my God, mom!" Noah exclaimed, throwing his hands in the air.
"Look on the bright side, Noah," I said. "At least we know our mouths are clean..."