Entitlement Rules

I'm assuming that your family is like our family. Everyone has an assigned seat in the vehicle. This is more of an unwritten rule than an actual assigned seat. Becky has sat behind the front passenger since Day 1, so that's where she sits. Josh sits behind the driver. The little boys sit in the back of the van. And the poor nephew, despite being the second oldest among our kids, gets the center of the 3rd row because he was the last to join the family. And of course, dynamics change when someone enters or exits the vehicle.

If I am driving and Sam isn't in the vehicle, Becky automatically sits in the front and one of the little boys moves up from the 3rd row to fill her vacant spot in the 2nd row. If we drop Josh off somewhere along the way, for instance, then a kid moves up from the 3rd row to fill his seat. You'd think this would always fall to the next in age, but you'd be wrong. Poor Luke suffers from Middle Child Syndrome so severely that sometimes it's like he doesn't even exist. Micah has made it very clear that he is Very Entitled. We have worked hard to try stripping him of that title, thereby making him Quite Untitled, but that boy is a crafty one and finds ways to title himself again.

If I am driving Luke and Micah somewhere, Micah always calls shotgun. Always. Even if he can't say "shotgun" nor know what the term means. It's that entitlement thing. Luke tries, on occasion, to have a turn, but that never ends well. Luke is incredibly gracious and mostly never says a word, and sometimes I even tell Luke to sit up front because Micah needs reminded that he does not rule the world. Then Micah gets to be mad at both Luke and me, and that's a fun car ride. (She said sarcastically.)

Today I participated in a craft show between church services. It was actually called Tails & Tiaras, and was a pet fashion show slash craft fair. Because of this fun fact, I took Louie with me. That dog feels just as entitled as Micah does, and pretty much gets away with as much as well. He has privileges the other dogs have never even thought to dream about. Louie had an awesome time spending the whole day with me, because he gets a little frantic if he can't see me. That's why we crate him when we go away. But because I had to leave immediately following service this morning, I took Louie to church with me. He sat in the vehicle while I was in church, because while the pastor's exact words were, "are you going to clean up all the messes the dogs make?" when I mentioned about having a dog friendly service, he didn't exactly say no, but I also took that as a "let's just not do this, okay?"

After the craft fair, where Louie met all kinds of new people and dogs, we drove right back to church for the kids' play practices. Because I never went home, we had several vehicles at church; the teens had to drive themselves in as I couldn't pass home and collect them. Or even pass go and collect $200. I ended up taking just Micah home, while the teens all dispersed equally in the 2 cars they had. Well, I had Micah and Louie, my two spoiled boys.

Micah wanted to stop on the way home for a hot dog and pop, and because I'm a huge sucker, I obliged. Louie gets a bit frantic when I'm out of his sight, and since dogs aren't any more welcome in convenience stores than they are in church (come on, America, what gives?), he waited for us in the van. But he didn't wait well. He jumped from the back seat to the front seat and knocked over a heap of stuff on the center console between the two front seats. He was worriedly looking out the window closest the store as we walked out. Micah found this amusing.

And then Micah went right to the sliding door and got in the second row seat because Louie was in shotgun. The boy was actually laughing about the dog taking his spot in the van, not grumbling and pointing and sending Louie back to the place where he belonged.

You know, guys, if those two boys ever team up and pool their resources together, I am totally going to be screwed. They're both Quite Entitled, and they both know it. The two of them together would be far more entitled than the world ever needs to deal with.


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