Foist

Foist

From Dictionary.com:

To force upon or impose fraudulently or unjustifiably

I can't help but think, stuffed under this thick, itchy blanket gasping for what little warm, stale air is left, that I don't deserve this.  I didn't ask for this.  I didn't want it.  Nothing I've done, no decision made or action taken, throughout my life should have brought me to this point.  But here I am.  Under a blanket waiting to be found by the 19-month old that put me there to begin with.  Waiting to be found just so he can squeal "More.  More."

Maybe if he left the room, I could understand the thrill at finding me under the blanket he forced over me.  But he doesn't leave the room.  He tells me "Hidin'" and covers me up and then sits in the armchair and watches me and asks the others--the ones doing nothing to help me--"Where?"  They offer suggestions as to where I might be (though, having been in the same room all along, they also saw me swaddled in an old quilt) and he entertains all the possibilities, but eventually he declares "No" when, for example, I turn out not to be in the oven of his play kitchen.

It continues until all logical and totally illogical options are exhausted, save the most painfully logical and obvious, the place I've been "Hidin'" all along, the place I've been "Hidin'" most of the afternoon.  When my actual hiding spot is finally suggested as my hiding spot, the blanket is thrown off of me.  Sweet air conditioned air!  Beautiful artificial light!  Everyone is amazed and revels in their awe.  Under the blanket?  Who would have thought?!

But my freedom is short-lived.  The boy's appetite for hide 'n seek is not sated.  "Hidin'" he says, and back under the blanket I go.  Goodbye cool freedom.  Hello mothball-ridden prison.