The stories you are about to read are true. Only the names have been changed to protect the GUILTY.
Several of you will know which children I'm talking about in these stories, as you either witnessed, or are familiar with, the circumstances involved. As stated in my Blogmandments, I am not here to embarrass anyone, so I'll try not to give too many hints as to their identities.
I want to state for the record that I adore the two scamps portrayed in these stories, and I would be damn proud if I were their dad. But kids are kids. . . and kids are gross. . . so here we go. . .
According to cartoons and movies, there's an angel that lives on one of your shoulders, and a devil on the other. Angels are good.
"Homer, that's a terrible thing to say."
And devils are bad.
"Suck her tits, squeeze her buns."
If I'm in any way representative of the rest of humanity (God help us if that's the case), I think we need a third shoulder. Because there's another creature living somewhere near my head, and his whispers often drown out the angel and devil. He's the nervous wreck.
"That looks infected."
I love most kids, but they send all three of my shoulder-dwellers into overdrive. They are sweet, clever, evil, stupid, and carry all sorts of germs. All at the same time.
Story One:
The first story of grossness happened with my niece. Let's call her. . . ummm. . . Darlene? Yeah, Darlene works. Her name is Darlene. This happened when she was five or six. If there are any kids reading this, it's this many:
Darlene loves me, as do most little girls. Then they grow up and wise up. She really loves it when I read stories to her, or play dolls with her and stuff. I have very little patience for these types of activities, but I know it's my duty to perform them. In order to maintain some sanity, I have to liven it up to make it interesting. Doll playing inevitably degrades into the dolls farting and pooping on each other, and I turn storybook characters into either very awful or very stupid people. Or awful, stupid, farting people. How could she not love me?
In this particular instance, I was reading Darlene a story about a little girl who finds a picture of a baby. She doesn't recognize the baby, and asks her mom a bunch of questions about who's in the picture. The mom gives her hints throughout the book, and the girl finally figures out who it is. SPOILER ALERT: It's actually the little girl when she was a baby. I found this girl to be very self-centered and dim, so I played her in a very grating and needy voice. Think Fran Drescher as a learning disabled child.
ME: "'Moooommmmmyyyy, why is the baby wearing your hat?' She's pretty stupid isn't she?"
DARLENE: "Dumb as a box of rocks."
I love that she knows that phrase, even though I didn't teach it to her. Anyway, Darlene was curled up with her head against my chest as she followed along with the story, giggling at the stupid, bratty girl trying to figure out the baby in the picture. Once I finished, she rolled her head against my chest, looked up into my eyes, and hit me with this:
DARLENE: "I have a question."
ME: "Yeah?"
DARLENE: "Did you know they found bugs in my hair?"
RECORD PLAYER IN THE BACKGROUND: "Scrrreeeeeech. . . "
I froze.
ME: "Itchy bugs?"
DARLENE: "Yeah."
ME: "Oh boy. Okay. Oh. Umm. . . yeah, that's uhhh, yeah."
This is what I saw when I looked down.
The angel, devil, and nervous wreck started assaulting my brain.
ANGEL: "Awww. . . Look at how sweet she looks. Don't embarrass her. It's all good."
DEVIL: "Throw her off of you. Punch her in the throat and run. RUN, goddammit!"
NERVOUS WRECK: "My head itches."
It took all of my fortitude to deny the devil the satisfaction of battering a tiny girl and fleeing to Canada. I have never had lice, but my only previous brush with them was still a little scarring. In 5th or 6th grade, a nurse came into our classroom for a lice check. I would guess now that this wasn't a random check. Instead, I suspect a classmate's parents told the school their kid had lice and they might want to check the other kids. I'm sure there's a humane way to do this, but this being a Catholic school, the lice check was performed in the most emotionally traumatic method possible.
The nurse walked in, spoke briefly with the teacher, and set up a chair at the front of the class. One by one, my classmates were called to sit in the chair and face the class. The nurse would put on a fresh pair of latex gloves, nudge her glasses up the bridge of her nose, and lean in with her fine toothed comb to examine for parasitic freeloaders. As they were cleared, each student would return to their desk. Most of the students in class were paralyzed with fear. Except one. Let's call him Jeb.
Jeb would not stop laughing and goofing around about other people having gross lice. He would act like lice was falling off the head of the girl in front of him and jumping around on his desk. He turned his fingers into little jumping bugs that would leap off his desk and into other people's hair. Jeb thought he was on a roll, even though nobody else was laughing.
The nurse got through about 75% of the class without anyone testing positive. Jeb, myself, and a few others still hadn't been called. Jeb was called next. He walked up the aisle, avoiding everyone's head as if they were all infected. He thought it was hilarious. He sat down with a silly grin on his face, and the nurse got to work. Within seconds, she nodded to the teacher. The teacher asked Jeb to stand against the chalkboard and called the next name. Jeb walked slowly to the chalkboard, turned, and faced the stares of his classmates. His face was a tormented mix of shame, embarrassment, confusion, and anger. My shoulder voices went to work.
ANGEL: "Oh my God, that poor boy. He doesn't deserve that. Don't worry, you won't be joining him. You haven't shared hats with anybody."
DEVIL: "Mock him! Point and laugh! He deserves it! Shame him! HAHAHAHAHA!!!"
NERVOUS WRECK: "I am not shitting you when I say this: I. Itch. All. Over. You're up there with him for sure."
My nervous wreck won conclusively. I could not stop scratching my head. Nobody laughed or mocked Jeb. Their silent stares may have been even worse. I was eventually called and cleared. It turned out that Jeb was the only one out of our class that was infected. After everyone was checked, he was led out of the classroom by the nurse and sent home. I was slightly traumatized by the examination in front of my classmates, but I was even more traumatized by what Jeb had gone through. 30 years later, and I haven't forgotten the feeling I experienced in that chair. I can't imagine going through what Jeb did. Just awful.
Now you might see why it was so hard not to follow the advice of my devil to hit and run. Instead, the angel and nervous wreck came to some sort of compromise.
ANGEL: "Alright, nervous wreck and I have talked, and here's what's going to happen. We don't want to trash this girl's self esteem, but we also don't want lice. You're going to politely separate yourself from her, tell everyone that you have to go home to feed the dogs, drive home as quickly as possible, shave your head, and rub bleach on your scalp. Sound good?"
ME: "I'm on it."
NERVOUS WRECK: "My arm itches too. My head and left arm. And shin. My head, left arm, and right shin itches."
You know those cartoons where the character kind of turns into a liquid and flows down out of a chair? That was me. I poured myself down out of her cuddle and rose back up into human form like Terminator 2.
ME: "Uncle Scott has to go, sweetie. You're great. All the cool kids have bugs. Love you! <to wife> Honey, let's go. Now."
MY WIFE: "She had them over a week ago. She's all clear now."
ME: "Oh, so now you're a school nurse?!? Where do we keep the bleach?"
By the time I got home, a little bit of rationality took over. I did shave my head (I was scheduled for that anyway), but I didn't apply any bleach. Either way, I itched for days. Actually, I've scratched my head dozens of times just typing this story. Blaarrrgghhh. . . lice are gross.
Story Two:
Still, that's nothing compared to my second story about the grossness of children. This one involves. . . ummm. . . Ted? Yeah, Ted works. Ted is some sort of second-cousin-in-law-twice-removed or something. He's a cool kid and wicked smart. Now, I hate it when parents tell me their kid is really smart.
PARENT: "Billy is sooo smart for a two year old!"
ME: "Oh yeah? How so?"
PARENT: "Watch this. <points to something blue> Billy, what color is this?"
BILLY: "Booje."
PARENT: "See? He knows colors already."
ME: <pointing to something red> "Billy, what color is this?"
BILLY: "Booje."
ME: "You've got a regular Doogie Howser on your hands. I hope they have a gifted program in your school district."
PARENT: "Shut up."
I've met a few really smart kids, and Ted is one of them. He operates beyond his age, and he's inquisitive about a wide range of topics. But he's still a kid, and therefore gross. This story happened when Ted was four or five-ish.
We were all at my in-laws for a holiday. I think it was Thanksgiving, but it could have very well been some other holiday. All I know is I had eaten a great deal and was kicking back in the recliner watching some TV. The wall that this recliner backs up to has a small ledge that runs along its base. This ledge is about four inches high, and sticks out about six inches.
As I was fading off into sleep, I felt tiny fingers running through my hair. I opened my eyes and saw Ted looking down at me. He had stepped up onto the ledge behind me and was looking down into my reclined face.
ME: "Hi, Ted."
TED: "Hi. Were you sleeping?"
ME: "Trying to. What are you doing?"
TED: "Nothing. You can sleep."
I thought it was a little weird, but I closed my eyes again and let him play around with my hair. After a short while, he started tugging on and looking in my ears. Knowing that he was the curious type, I figured he was just exploring, so I let him continue. After checking out both ears, he moved on to my eyes. Sleeping became impossible at this point, so I gave up and willingly played the role of anatomical dummy.
Ted started poking and pinching my cheeks, hooked my nose with his fingers, and rapped my chin with his knuckles. In short order, Ted got around to examining my mouth. He was using his hands to form my mouth into different shapes and pinching my lips shut. This had been a silent process, until I heard,
TED: "Open."
Being an obedient patient, I opened my mouth, and he began his oral exam. He was standing behind my head, looking straight down into my mouth. He poked my cheeks in with each of his index fingers and then pulled my lips back to check out my teeth. He started pulling on my teeth, and tapping on them with his fingernails.
ANGEL: "Aww, this is sweet. You're helping him learn."
DEVIL: "Bite him."
NERVOUS WRECK: "This is gross. You have no idea where his hands have been. He's old enough to wipe himself, you know. You're going to have to gargle Purell."
My angel beat out my nervous wreck by a very small margin. I let Ted probe and explore my mouth. He was looking straight down into it, pulling on my tongue and prying at my lips. He grabbed my lower jaw with his left hand, my upper jaw with his right, pulled my mouth as far open as he could, and spit directly into my mouth.
ANGEL: ". . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I know I should say something, but. . . . . . I, ummm. . . . . . You should. . . . . ummmm. . . . I got nothing."
DEVIL: "Dude, you know exactly what to do. This is all me! I am ON THIS!"
NERVOUS WRECK: "Did he just spit in our mou-<puuuuuuuuke>. Oh. Oh, God! Oh-<puuuuuuuuuuke>. <Puuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuke>."
This wasn't a giant loogie or anything, it was more as if he saw that my tonsils were on fire and he was trying to put them out. But I hate spit. Hate it. I have a very long fuse, but if you spit on me, things can deteriorate very quickly. It's a line that you don't want to cross with me. In high school, some guys at my lunch table had figured out how to gleek. Gleeking is using your tongue to make your salivary glands squirt saliva out of your mouth. They thought it was downright hilarious, and spent most of the lunch hour gleeking on each other. I warned them not to gleek on me. At all. A kid across from me opened his mouth, looked me in the eye, and gleeked on my sleeve. I was across that table before he knew it. I really don't like to be spit on.
In fact, I don't even like to witness it. Spitting is rude and gross. Especially those assholes that spit anywhere and everywhere and always. If you are the type of guy that stands around trying to look cool, spitting on a sidewalk or anywhere people are walking, then you, sir, are a douche.
As you can probably tell, my devil was primed and ready. Fortunately, he was drowned out by my nervous wreck's puking sounds long enough for Ted's dad to swoop in and snatch him from on top of me.
ANGEL: "Stay cool, man. He's just a kid. He doesn't know what he's doing."
DEVIL: "He knew exactly what he was doing! He's a fucking genius! Get him!"
NERVOUS WRECK: "I just want to say tha-<puuuuuuuuuuuuuke>."
My angel won, and I graciously accepted Ted's apology and took a little walk to push out the jive and bring in the love. I was impressed with how well I kept my composure, and I think everyone else was as well. Little did they know that it was only because I was temporarily frozen by the roaring ocean of puking sounds in my head.
So those are my two stories about the grossness of children.
ANGEL: "Thank you so much for taking the time to read this! I really appreciate it!"
DEVIL: "This whole blog thing is stupid. Just stop already."
NERVOUS WRECK: "Devil is right."
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