It’s been a bizarre day and it’s not even noon. So, I’m getting some work down while the boys are in class and I’m waiting for the groceries to arrive. I get this text message from Emmett telling me to check out empshield.com. I thought this is totally random and but I checked it out and it’s pretty self-explanatory. They deal in EMP shielding. I asked Emmett why he was sending that to me.

There’s a little backstory here.

A couple of weeks ago, while heading out to go hiking, we were talking about how to use a compass. The idea was safety related, since we were going hiking. We ended up on the topic of the Earth’s magnetic poles. Elliott decides to add to the mix that it’s believed the magnetic poles are on the verge of flipping. I was aware of that but didn’t bring it up because the kids are already overwhelmed with the current COVID crisis. They don’t need anything else to worry about.

Thanks to Elliott bringing that up, Emmett decided to Google what happens if the earth’s magnetic poles field flips. In short, it’s not a positive thing. The magnetic poles protect us from cosmic radiation that can cause things like cancer and fry our electrical grid.

I thought I had successfully redirected the conversation to something else because I haven’t heard anything about it since that car ride. That was until today. Either it popped into his head again, which he’s prone to doing or something was said in school that triggered this.

Anyway, I asked him what was going on and sure as shit, he was learning about the Earth’s magnetic poles in science class today. He was watching a video and they mentioned about the poles flipping but didn’t go into details. That was all he needed to jump on that thought train and ride it right out of the station.

Turns out he simply Googled EMP shields and there is literally a website with that name, so he sent it to me. He’s concerned about our electronics getting fried if and when this happens. I guess he wanted to point out that there are things we can do.

He seems to have dropped the subject as quickly as he picked it back up. Class finished a little while ago and he hasn’t followed up with me at all.

We’re moving on.

Mr. Gavin has decided that he’s going to speak in whispers only today. This isn’t the first time he’s done this. I wrote about it last month (see I think my autistic son is messing with me but I’m not sure).

Anyway, he’s only speaking in whispers again today and it’s driving me nuts. I can’t hear anything he’s saying and I have to keep asking him to repeat himself. I have no clue why he’s doing this but as with the first time, I sorta wonder if he’s doing this to mess with me. We always joke around and sometimes prank each other in this house and if that’s what he’s doing, kudos to him. He got me.

On the topic of pranking… We have this ongoing prank war amongst ourselves and sometimes the kids get out of hand. Last night, Emmett sabotaged all of Gavin’s playlists on YouTube Music but filling them with the entire collection of soundtracks from Bob’s Burgers. I don’t pretend to understand the thought process but he definitely got Gavin.

I’ve been thinking about ways to prank my kids and teach them a lesson at the same time. They can be a bit nosey. They always want to know who I’m talking to or what a text message says when they hear my phone beep. It drives me crazy.

Part of me is thinking about planting some information that they will find and I can turn the tables on them. I’m thinking about printing out some information for boarding schools and leaving it on my desk for them to find. I’m could leave some tabs open in chrome that points to sites like http://www.boardingschools.ca/ and just wait for the reaction.

Cruel? Maybe a smidgen. Funny? Most certainly. Lesson learned? That remains to be seen.