At that point I had an idea, and proceeded to retell a story from my youth to Pedro. A story with a lesson in being disrespectful to hearth and home for teenagers. It goes like this:
"When I was a teenager, I had a friend who didn't drive, and whose parents didn't smoke. That means a lot of us would hang out at her house. We'd also smoke on their front porch. There was, of course, no ashtray or trash receptacle to put our cigarette butts in. So we would just stub em out and leave the butts in the planters surrounding her front porch. Well one fine Spring day, at least a year after we all had been using her dad's planters as a giant ashtray; her dad decided to clean out his planters. Weed, add new flowers, you know shit us adults do to our planters in the Spring. He found the butts. But he didn't say anything. He didn't scream. He didn't yell. He didn't ground her for a month or say nobody could come over ever again . . . oh no. He waited for her and I to go to our favorite goth club Helter Skelter in Hollywood. We got home uber late, and after I dropped her off . . . as she quietly climbed into her perfectly made bed . . . she discovered she wasn't alone. The smell was horrific, the realization even MORE horrific. There, placed between the sheets of her perfectly made bed: at least 100 nasty-ass cigarette butts. She was horrified. She was mortified. And I can guarantee you not one single teenager left a cigarette butt in her dad's planters. Ever. Again."
So Pedro, I am going to take these two, used, nasty staining tea bags and place them on their pillows. I guarantee you we won't see another tea bag on the counter.
Pedro just shook his head and mumbled something about "you girls . . . ".
Yesterday, I got a little busy with Dash's 6th birthday party and didn't even think about the pillow-tea-bags until late. My brow furrowed when I realized Eden hadn't once screamed or yelled over the last two days about nasty tea bags on her pillowcase. . . . and that became it's own mystery. . .
Until a few moments ago, when through the luck of thin walls between ours and the girls room, and me sitting here quietly crocheting, did I hear what became of my lesson-teaching-tea-bags . . .
Eden: "Oh my GAWD, Crysta! I have to tell you something that happened while you were gone! This is soooo creepy! So I got home the other day and there was, of all things, a tea bag on my pillow! I was like 'what is this doing here?' and I threw it away not thinking much about it, like it fell out of a cup in the morning when we were hurrying for school. So I just threw it away and forgot about it. BUT OH MY GAWD THIS IS SOOOOO WEIRD!!! I got home and I was cleaning up our room and there-- ON YOUR PILLOW-- was the exact. same. teabag!!! (clearly it wasn't, they each got a teabag but she just didn't notice it)
Crysta: "OH MY GAWD!!!! Are you serious? Are you messing with me??? Are you saying there's paranormal activity going on in our room???
Eden: "Well what else could it be?? I'm telling you one day there was a tea bag on my pillow that I threw away and the next day the same exact one was on your pillow!?!? Something is really creepy here! I was so terrified. I couldn't sleep!!! I'm telling you, how could it put the tea bag back on your pillow? OHMYGAWD!!!! WHAT DOES IT MEAN????"
Me: *face in pillow, stifling uproarious laughter, goes to grab keyboard because I can't NOT blog it*
Tea bag specter . . . dying laughing over here. . . .
