Super Secret Super Spy

When we arrived at the Y for the homeschool swim party, our 13-year-old friend The Armorer, who had unexpectedly spent the night with us last night, didn't have his swim suit. His mom was a little late, so I asked a friend with 7 kids if, by any chance, she had a spare in his size.

Alas, not with her, she said, but said that someone who resembled her but with much looser ethics had been known to check the Lost & Found, "find" a missing swim suit for the afternoon, and then leave it behind again.

I was about to try this gambit when The Armorer's mom arrived.

Sadly, however, it turned out that his swimsuit had been left home.

I decided to try the gambit. This is the story of Super Spy Su And The "Missing" Swimsuit.

First, I decided that I would try to do this without actually telling a lie. I would say things that were technically true, and allow inferences to do the rest.

Accordingly, I went to the front desk and said, "We seem to be short a swimsuit. May I check the Lost & Found?"

Tim was summoned to take me to the Lost & Found.

He caused trouble from the first by asking as we walked there, "What color is it?"

"Ummm...navy blue," I said, figuring the odds were good that, if there were any swimsuits in the Armorer's size, one of them would be navy blue.

Tim continued to make trouble in the Lost & Found room, "helping" me root through bins. I had hoped to be less supervised, so it wouldn't be quite so obvious that the only actual criterion I had was size.

"I'm not sure I'll recognize it," I said. "I can't always tell the kids' swimsuits apart. Look, here's one that is exactly like my husband's!" All of these things were technically true.

I had found a promising candidate, in navy blue even, but covered in white Hawaiian-style flowers...I was pondering how to pretend this was the swimsuit I was looking for despite it having not occurred to me earlier to mention the flowers, when Tim said, "Well, if you can't find his, this whole bag here has just been through the wash. He can borrow one of these for the afternoon."

I blinked a couple of times and said, "This one will do, then."

Tim even delivered it to the men's locker room for me.

So much for my brilliant career in espionage.

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