What Goes Around

The word boomerang has many meanings. Of course, the traditional one is the throwing stick that when thrown properly, comes back to you. I had a friend, Mary, who had adopted a young puppy. She optimistically named it Boomerang. Her hopes were that the dog would quickly learn to retrieve a thrown object and that it would always return home if it were to escape from the lead. As I say, it was optimistic of her. The dog would enthusiastically chase anything that was thrown for it but would just as enthusiastically claim the item as his own and never return it. One day she threw the ball hard and Boomerang chased it right on out of the yard and kept on going. He never came back.

Mary’s children did come back. She had three of them and truly thought that she had done her job rearing them and once they had moved out of the house, she would be free to use their bedrooms as she pleased. Her plans included a crafts room and an exercise room. Maybe she would even tear down a wall and enlarge her own bedroom into a suite. Even as she was rolling up her sleeves for a good clear out of the stuff that children leave behind, her son called to say that he was getting a divorce and that he planned to move in, temporarily. Just until he got on his feet. She reluctantly helped him move back in. The other two siblings followed suit soon thereafter. They had always been competitive and felt that if one was getting to live rent free in the childhood home, they all should.

The adult children had taken over the whole house and were always bickering. It was as if they had fallen into a time machine and came out as pre-teens. The attitude toward their mother became downright hostile if she didn’t pick up after them or cook their meals. Mary had read that this phenomenon was referred to a the “boomerang generation”. While she knew that she had allowed this to happen, she truly wished that they would be gone again so that she could have her own space back.

She began dreaming of a giant sling shot that would fling them all out of the house and place them far, far away. Boomerangs and sling shots led her dreams to Australia, where those simple tools were part of the hunting arsenal of the aborigines. The random thoughts and dreams came together as a plan to move down there. Mary came upon a way to fund this move quite by accident. She answered the door one morning to a realtor inquiring if she would be willing to sell her house. Mary struck a deal that both parties were satisfied with. The arrangements included that the house would be sold fully furnished and as is.

Mary announced to the three siblings that she had arranged for a fun weekend away. The children could go on ahead and she would meet them later, after she cleaned up the house. She made them a lovely breakfast and kissed them each goodbye. This act left them a bit surprised but not enough to question it. After all, they were looking forward to a free vacation! When mom never arrived as she promised she would, they never even bothered to call her to see if she was okay. When it came time to check out of the hotel, they discovered that they were responsible for the bill. They drove home together in a real snit and were ready to really give mom a hard time. But mom wasn’t there, and neither was their house. It had been sold to a developer and he had had it razed immediately.

As Mary sat in a café in Sydney looking across the harbour, she reflected that what had happened was yet another kind of boomerang. When bad actions come back to bite you in the butt.