What's going on?

Every once in a while I catch my kids trying to get away with something that they know they shouldn't. For example, I caught my son trying to unplug my alarm clock this morning in the hopes that we would over sleep and let him skip school for the day. Little did he know that by the time the alarm goes off every morning I'm just laying there in mock sleep. The cat and the dog know what time I should get up and are quick to annoy me every morning until I pet them or feed them. So when my son came creeping in like a keystone cops bank robber he didn't realize I was in my mock sleep state. After he crept back to his room I walked in flipped on the lights and told him that as long as he was already awake he needed to clean up his room immediately, fix his and his sisters' lunches, and that he had just excused himself from video games for the next month.

Thinking about it now, I still get aggravated by the whole situation. The worst part is that I'm not sure whether it's because he tried to get away with something, or because it's something that could have affected me, or because of the very clumsy way in which he attempted it. Invariably when I catch him trying to get away with some mischief, after reading him the riot act I want to sit down and tell him a better way to have pulled the caper. I want to point out the flaws in his strategy and execution. I think it's better if I don't, but it's tough to watch your kids make mistakes.