My first foray into Domestic Forensics

Paul and I have this inside joke about something called "Domestic Forensics". It's when you figure out something that happened in your house via clues... So it's pretty much what it sounds like!

These are the best examples of Domestic Forensics I can give you...

... When Paul sees indentations from my weights on the couch, he knows I didn't run that morning, I lifted.

... Sometimes I drop a piece of my cereal on the floor on my way out the door in the morning and Paul texts me a picture of it later in the day and says something like, "You had Cheerios for breakfast."

... I'm sure there are other examples, I just can't think of them right now!

Note: Domestic Forensics is NOT snooping. It's when you discover clues naturally and then put two and two together to figure out what happened.

When I was brainstorming for last week's Friday 5 post, I remembered something that happened that really shows that I have always had an attention and appreciation for Domestic Forensics...

As a child, I was a very picky eater. I remember my mom being really good about not making me eat things I didn't like. Sometimes she'd make me have a bite (which of course I hated), but was fine with me fixing myself a bologna sandwich for dinner as long as I tasted what she made. (I actually liked bologna sandwiches a lot.)

But one time, when I was in middle or high school, for some reason my mom decided she was going to MAKE me eat pot pie. I have never liked pot pie, so I didn't understand why my mom was suddenly forcing me to eat it. Who knows, maybe I was being an ungrateful brat that day!? 

Well, I was not going to eat the pot pie and the situation turned into one of those standoffs at the table. My mom told me I couldn't leave the table until I had eaten. As you know, I'm very stubborn, especially when I'm angry, so I sat there for a pretty long time. I sat there for so long that my parent's had to leave for my brother's soccer game. They left and I continued to sit there, staring at the pot pie.

What could I do? Eating it was out of the question. I couldn't throw it away because my mom would see it in the trash. I thought about flushing it down the toilet but what if the toilet got clogged or remnants got stuck in the bowl? There had to be some way to get rid of the pot pie without my mom figuring it out...

Then I had the greatest idea! I grabbed a plastic baggie out of a kitchen drawer and put the pot pie in that. Then I ran across the street to the park and threw it in one of the trash cans!

I'M A DOMESTIC FORENSICS GENIUS!!!!!

I put the bowl that had the pot pie in it in the sink. When my mom got home, she never asked me if I actually ate the pot pie and we never talked about the situation again. To this day, I'm not sure if I ever told her the story!

Are you "good" at domestic forensics?

Did you ever have an "I'm not eating that" standoff with your parents or with your kids?

Do you make your kids eat things they don't like?