Justin and Garrett have become aware of the concept of revenge. “If you do this to me, then I will do this to you.” Nowhere has this become more clear than in my car.

When the boys were younger, we used the child safety locks on the back doors to make sure that they didn’t try to open a door and flop out of the car while it was in motion. Luckily, no one tried it. But, they also knew that they could not get out of the car without some help from the outside. They’re much more grown and (cough, cough) mature now. They can get in and out of the car on their own.

Recently, Justin thought it would be funny to switch Garrett’s child safety lock to “on” without telling him. Justin could easily get out of the car, but Garrett was stuck behind…and then he got frustrated at his brother and tried to yell at him from the inside of the car. Justin heard nothing. I became deaf.

Garrett got wise as to what was going on and when Justin wasn’t looking, he would walk over to Justin’s side of the car and then switch HIS child safety lock to “on.” Garrett had his revenge and he would laugh hysterically as he got out of the car because he left Justin trapped and frustrated.

For 2 weeks, this became the morning routine as I dropped them off at the school bus. They would try to race each other out of the car and onto the bus. But (inevitably) one of them would be left behind they were locked in.

And, they got smart/dumb about it! As they got into the car, they’d assume the other messed with their lock and (in an attempt to outwit the other) they’d accidentally set the lock to “on”…thereby locking themselves in.

This had gotten a little annoying, but I had a solution. One morning, I told them that I had had enough and to stop playing with the locks. What they didn’t know was that I set both locks to “on.” As we approached the bus, they both tried to race each other out of the car only to find that they were both locked in. I laughed as both tried to escape my car.

I think they learned their lesson: don’t aggravate the guy who controls ALL the locks in the car!