Let me set the stage, err table. While sitting at the dining room table, I face the living room.  The living room with the “nice” chairs.  Charlene sits with her back to the living room.  This means that most of the living room happenings go unnoticed and unauthorized, when she sits at the dining room table.

Our 8-year-old son Sam had finished his dinner, sort of, well as much as Sam ever finishes a dinner. Appropriately enough he asked to be excused and was granted his release from the apparent torture of being asked to eat baked ziti with a side of grapes.  Bounding toward the living room, Sam promptly flopped upon one of the nice chairs.  Not surprising in that Sam is the most likely candidate in the family to “flop” on a chair, even a “nice” chair.  Plus, this flop was all-in, I mean limbs flailing all about.  Bottoms on the arm of the chair, head off to an angle, and legs and arms in all sorts of unauthorized places.  Not the appropriate way to sit on one of the “nice” living room chairs and certainly a blunder committing a household rules violation so close to his mother, even with her back turned.

Witnessing the flop, I stared directly as Sam and gave a subtle shake of the head. A clear warning that any observer could have deciphered, but yet stealthy enough as to not disrupt the flow of diner table conversation.  Unfortunately, young Sam was too busy flopping to catch the glance and the only person who saw the head shake was the one person it was intended to avoid.  Yes, the lifeline I had thrown to Sam had been intercepted by his mother, who promptly turned her head, witnessed the violating flop, and swiftly provided instructions to young Sam to halt the offending behavior.  Ah, flop warning fail.