Clueless

Sometimes I think kids act clueless just to get out of doing something.  Example.... Sam, the 7 year old, has had chores for a long time... but I asked him to mop with just water today because of the oil mess they made on the floor on Saturday (more to post later).  He went down and brought up each of the three mops in turn and asked if he could use it... I have one for bathrooms, one that's the "easy mop" for sticky spills and the one that I actually use on a regular basis.  That's the one he brought up last.  Then he went down to find the mop head for it and comes back with my dusting rags, then some bathroom wash rags, then with dad's electronic cleaning rags.... I tell him that it's  one of the two down there that have elastic on it.  I tell him that elastic is the stuff on his pants that is stretchy and keep them on his waist... he comes back up with a shower curtain.  Non-plussed at this point, I take him down to the rags and pull them out.  I ask him if anything that he's been bringing me have anything stretch on them... he says no, so I ask why he's been bringing them instead of still looking for one.  I help him get it and he takes a good 2 minutes trying to figure out where it goes on the mop when there's only one place.  I finally ask if he's ever seen me mopping and where has he seen it when I'm mopping... he put it on right away.  Yeah, I think today is the act helpless so I don't have to actually do your chore day.