Whose Underwear is That?

"There's never a dull moment".  I don't know who wrote that, but I'd be willing to bet that that person was a parent.  Of preschoolers.  Take last Thursday, for example - I picked up the kids at school and we headed home.  As usual, once we got home Owen requested to play on the tablet (and by play, I mean he will accidently click on ads until he manages to find a raunchy Miley Cyrus video on YouTube).  Maybe 20 minutes after we get home, Owen goes to use the bathroom and comes back out requesting jean-buttoning assistance.  I oblige, and it wasn't until I kneeled down that I noticed something...unusual.  Owen was wearing someone else's underwear.

I sat there for a moment, trying to sort through his sock drawer in my head in order to convince myself that at some point in time, we had in fact purchased these and maybe I just hadn't seen them in a while.  But it was no use.  These definitely were not his.

Me:  "Owen, why are you wearing someone else's underwear?"
Owen:  (silence)
Me:  "Owen, where are YOUR underwear?"
Owen:  (silence)

Ok, I get it.  He's pleading the 5th.  That's fine, it's ok.  I'm no Mariska Hargitay but I've watched enough Law & Order to know that if you're going to get them to talk you have to pull out the big guns before they ask for a lawyer, or start screaming for graham crackers.  Then they are as good as gone.

Me:  "Owen, you need to tell me whose underwear that is or I'm going to put the tablet away."  (add this to my list of sentences I never expected to hear myself say...)
Owen:  "But it's ok, Mom, they're clean."

Wait...what?  Call me naive, but it wasn't until RIGHTTHATMOMENT that it occured to me that these strange underwear may NOT have been clean.  :::shudder:::  All sorts of bizarre endings to this mystery started swirling in my head, I think one of them involved a standoff at the lego table?, until I realized the absurdity of this whole situation.  It's pretty obvious what happened, and so I decided to just lay it all out there so that he knew that I knew that he knew.

Me:  "Owen, did you steal those from Bear In Underwear's backpack?"

Slowly, his deer-in-the-headlights look transformed into a mischevious grin and he started laughing.  I laughed, too, because standing in front of me was a tiny person who was throwing his head back like an evil overlord who had just captured his arch enemy...and then stole his underwear.  How is that not funny?  It was ridiculous, and hilarious, and confusing, and every kind of thing I should be used to by now as a mom.  Eventually I discovered his real underwear crammed into the bottom of his backpack along with a handwritten note from his teacher explaining that she keeps backups, "just in case".  I guess that's relieving (pun intended). 

Never a dull moment...