My son stormed through the front door after school the other day, tossed his backpack down and as he kicked off his shoes he glared at me and announced, “I’m really mad at you, Mom.”

I looked at him and quickly ran through any possibilities of why he would come home and suddenly announce he was angry with me in my head.

In the last 48 hours I had a.) eaten all of the chocolate bars in the Halloween stash after he specifically asked me not to b.) ignored the Do Not Enter MOM sign pinned on his door to plow through his private sanctum looking for hidden pieces of dirty laundry while taking time to snoop through his comic book collection for signs of girly magazines and c.) announced on national television he had a girlfriend.

Since none of that was unusual for any given day around here, I decided to roll the dice and face the angry beast snorting before me.

“Why? What did I do?”

“In computer class, I googled your name and found this!!” He screeched as he waved a crumpled piece of paper in front of my face.

My heart momentarily stopped when he said he googled my name because dammit, no good can EVER come from that misdeed, but it kick started long enough for me to grab the paper and examine it.

Staring back at me in the face was this:

And this:

I couldn’t help myself. I started to laugh. “Dude! I’m sorry. It was a joke for a couple of blog posts I wrote last year. No big deal.”

“NO BIG DEAL??” My lovely 12 year old son screeched. “You posed in a bikini on YOUR blog!”

I was about to blow it off but the steam pouring out the ears of my obviously upset child had me think twice about such a neglectful parenting maneuver, so instead I sat him down on the couch beside me and openly mocked him.

“Frac, you bonehead, that isn’t ME.”

“It is too! I’m not blind!”

“No, you ninny, it’s my face, copy and pasted on two different bodies. A friend did it for me. It’s not my body.”

“Yes it is. Don’t try to weasel out of this Mom. Do you know how embarrassing it was to google your name in computer class in front of my friends and then find these pictures? Like I want all my friends to see my mom like that! And the computer teacher!! He saw them too!!”

Ruh-roh.

“Um dude, why were you googling my name in computer class? Aren’t you supposed to be doing something a little more educational with your time?” The best defence is always a good offence I find, when parenting teens.

In other words, deflect then deny. Words to live by my friends. Trust me.

Frac squirmed for about a nanosecond, looking guilty at having been caught wasting his time in class before his righteous anger flooded back and reminded him that I was the one in trouble, not him.

“I finished my assignment and I had some free time so I wanted to show my computer teacher what my mom looked like,” my son huffed indignantly.

“Well, mission accomplished I suppose,” I snorted with laughter.

“MOOOOM! That’s not funny! It was embarrassing! You are in a BIKINI! On your BLOG!”

“Frac, look carefully at those pictures,” I said as I pointed at the crumpled images on his lap. “Now, think back to how many times you have seen me naked or in my own bikini. One that doesn’t have Canadian maple leaves on it. Now look back at those bodies in the picture. Those bodies aren’t mine. My body does not look like either of those.”

“Well, I guess. Your boobs are saggier.”

Talk about a low blow delivered by my very own rabid badger. Ouch.

“Well, that wasn’t exactly the point I was trying to make..”

“And your stomach isn’t near as flat,” Frac continued his scientific analysis of my body parts.

“Um Frac…”

“Plus, I can’t decide if your thighs are as big as those or if yours are bigger.”

“Okay Frac. I think you’ve got the idea now. No need to completely destroy every shred of my self esteem here.”

“That’s kinda how I felt too when those pictures popped up.”

“Then don’t google my name during class. In fact, let’s make a new family rule that you don’t google my name at all ever, under any circumstances and then every one’s self esteem will remain intact. Deal?”

“Deal.”

There is a lesson to be learned here.

Children should never have access to computers. Ever. Especially if their mothers have no shame and randomly paste photoshopped images of themselves on the internet.

Like these ones:

Oh ya baby. That’s right. I’m rocking the Kate wig. And if you find these images Frac, keep your mouth shut. Or I’m totally going to wear that wig to your computer class and yell at your teacher for teaching you how to use search engines.

*Big thanks to Green In OC for taking the time to help me mortify my children once again, publicly. You rock.*