Confessions, Brat-i-cide, and Breaking the Ten Commandments

The stories in this column are true. Averett lives a dull life in rural Southside Virginia with his wife Management, two children and a rotating assortment of goats, dogs, cats, snakes and other local fauna.

One of the Grand-brats just achieved a personal record and in fact I believe his achievement has not happened in over 2000 years. You might say he is tied for the world championship record. Here’s what happened. My bride Management was showing some visiting friends of ours a bookmark that had belonged to her grandmother. The bookmark was a chain of silver discs with each containing one of the 10 commandments. Management’s Grandmother used it in her Bible.

So after Management had left for work and the G-brat and I were visiting with our friends and some cousins who were traveling by I noticed the G-brat had found the bookmark, was inserting the discs between the deck boards and was breaking them.

Having broken a few of the commandments myself I was concerned. After all, there are always consequences to breaking the Big Ten. Fortunately, in this case it isn’t the wrath of God he needed to fear; it is the wrath of Grand-Ma’am, although it is going to be tough for him either way. On the other hand, the wrath of God is usually delayed while the wrath of Grand-Ma’am is more immediate.

So there I was with a G-brat who had achieved a record of breaking ALL Ten Commandments in a few minutes, a feat unsurpassed since Moses threw the stone tablets on the ground, and I am responsible for reporting the incident to the higher power.

Meanwhile the G-brat is wearing his tee-shirt, happily ignorant of the impending doom. I, on the other hand, am fully aware of the situation and the impending judgment day. I am also well aware of the time honored practice of “Killing the Messenger” which is one reason this newspaper is named the Messenger.

However, I have made it a practice to never lie to Management. After 32 years of success during which I have occasionally delayed an uncomfortable situation for a few days, I have always confessed to everything. Which by the way, in general I am opposed to confession which is one of the reasons I would never join a Catholic church but with Management it is different. Besides if I did something wrong she would be able to read it on my face before she got down the driveway.

My theory is never lie to the important people in your life because they deserve better and never lie to unimportant people because they aren’t worth the effort.

I have to admit the G-brats have an easier way of handling such a situation. They hide the evidence and deny all knowledge of said event. As I have been known to say in similar situations “I deny the allegations and defy the Alligator” but in this case that isn’t an option.

My first chore was to find the broken commandments that had fallen between the deck boards and were lost in the weeds underneath. It took quite a while to find the ones on adultery and murder. I didn’t think I would have any luck convincing Management her grandmother had removed those two although only eight commandments would certainly make a lot of people’s lives easier.

When Management returned I was, as the Bible says, “filled with fear and trembling.” You can’t imagine how many times I have carefully positioned myself between Management and our brats to prevent a case of Brat-i-cide.  Not that they didn’t necessarily deserve capital punishment but because Grand-brats are the reward parents get for not killing their children.

After confessing the situation to Grand-Ma’am she smiled sweetly (at the G-brat) admonished him to be more careful, and said “Faux Pa can fix it.”

You can attribute this to age and maturity or anything else you like, but the fact is Grand-brats get special treatment.