Through My Webcam

Prologue

Hey everyone. Webby here. You need lots of contraptions like me these days. We're useful, whether for selfies, monitoring the kids, or catching errant intruders. 

I'm not too sure if you want to uncover everything we record, though. Anyway, my owner treats me well and uses a microfibercloth to ensure my pristine radiance everyday. 

 I want to return him the favor and record things automatically. So I took notes of the family's activities when he was off for a vacation to the lovely coast of Hawaii recently ...

Scene 1: The Dog

Ok, I set myself to recording mode. And I'm hidden in one of the indoor plants so that no one (or animal in the home can see me. 

And what do we have.....ah. We first record the dog, which of course, has stuck his wet nose in the pot trying to uncover me. Thankfully, he got distracted by the next-door-neighbour's incessant yelling. 

To speak of plants, my owner, Dan, has always wanted to find out if the dog has been creating lovely tears in his precious avocado plant. It turns out that it wasn't his precious pawfriend but the lovely Cuckoo couple which did it. 

Scene 2: The Eight-Year-Old

Eight-year-old Mike comes up next. Mike has ADHD and slight autism, so Dan wants to know how he behaves at home and if he's doing his homework. 

And, Mike being Mike, offers up a stellar performance for my lens. He cries when the family helper tries to get him to eat his breakfast daily, but eventually complies like a peaceful puppy. He may have special needs, but is an otherwise lovely and compliant. 

It's the homework. He struggles to finish it because concentrating on it is putting an extra 50 kilometres on the expressway where he is concerned. He always scrunches up his face into petulant yet adorable kiddy patterns when he's asked about it. 

And what a relief. He DID complete his homework by the time I hit record. 

Scene 3: 14-year-old Tom

The teenaged Tom returns from school when late afternoon rolls around. Dan has always been worried about the company Tom keeps. 

You know how teens are. They like no questions, and are fabulously flippant about answers. Most youth are off with their friends at the neighbourhood Macdonald's after school instead of home for lunch.

Not Tom, though. He was the school's Math Olympiad champion. 

Dan has always been worried about Tom's underdeveloped social skills. Most teens try to hide their youthful better halves from their parents, but not Tom. He simply wasn't interested. 

And I've rewound the footage. He simply wasn't interested, though he did have an unusual number of nerdy, bespectacled girls visiting to try his new XBox Console. 

Scene 4: The 16-year-old

Ah, now we have Sarah. Pretty as she was, Sarah always needed a little depth. Homework floored her, as did conversations that were remotely intellectual or introspective. 

So Dan had reason enough to wonder what the pretty but overly-sociable teen would do when he was not around. I wouldn't have been surprised if I recorded her trying to sneak a handsome boy into the house since he wasn't around. 

I did raise my camera lens a little, though. I had captured Sarah holding her bestie's hands quite tenderly. Thought I'd catch a boy on camera instead. Oh well. It was just hands; Dan would shrug it off. 

Scene Five: The Wife

Ah, the dependable Mary. She and Dan boasted a blissful marriage of 27 wonderful years. Dan set me up on a tripod to record their anniversary. The renewal of vows a moment of jubilation and love that every couple loved to remember, what with Dan's best friend Mark serving as a best man and the church's pews decorated exactly as they had been nearly three decades earlier.

 I guess that Dan would just want a welfare check on Mary. 

To speak of Mark. He and Dan had been best friends since their days in the army. Dan and the slightly older Mark had become exceptionally close since the platoon wouldn't accept the latter - Mark had been clumsy, forgetting his rifle or assembling it in the wrong order, inciting the wrath of the company's sergeant. Dan served as the proverbial shoulder to cry on. 

And my lens goes up again. What do we have here? Mark paying a surprise visit? That was odd; Dan was probably enjoying succulent pig roast over a fire of molten lava on the island of Maui with other buddies, and Mark knew it. 

Oh well. Mark was the infamous jokester - he could make an entire room laugh at his silly stand ups and antics. Just another of his surprises. It was only Mary at home though. 

And there was Mary at the door. What was Mark doing stroking her hand?  Mary was ill; perhaps he was just doing what friends do and trying to offer support. 

But why follow her into the bedroom? Why close the door? Delete! Delete! Delete!