Several years ago, my wife and our 3 children were on their way to a wake for a good friend. He was in his upper 80's, a free thinker and a real fun guy but it was his time. Our three teen age children were in the car and saw that their mom was feeling a wee bit sad so they tried to cheer her up on the way to the funeral home.
They talked of many things and finally our middle child asked mom, "Did I ever tell you about dad and the ass worms story?" The Love Of My Life almost slammed on the brakes of the car and screamed, "WHAT?!" Our child went on to tell the sordid tale of how her dad was a cagy old codger even when he was younger and the other two just chimed right in.
The kids would run around the house and outside all day long and burn off loads of energy. I thought that they were more energetic than usual for 3 and 4 year old's but didn't notice because I was busy rehabbing the house. I went to the refrigerator to get something cold to drink and saw the two older kids running towards the kitchen at full toddler speed, swoop by the table and stuck their sticky fingers in the sugar bowl and then place these same fingers into their mouths without breaking stride. I was amazed at their dexterity and finesse but knew that as a father, I should stop this.
I called them in and washed off their fingers and told them that you will get worms if you keep eating raw sugar. They were young enough to believe me too. I explained that worms will crawl out of your butts when you sleep if you eat raw sugar. So they looked at each other and decided that maybe they shouldn't do that anymore. I was told later that there was a great discussion about this at bedtime that night and maybe they should go to mom with this tidbit of information but they didn't after all. It's a good thing that they didn't because the story would have ended there.
They held this to be true for years and years and years. It got to the point that if I wanted something out of the refrigerator that I'd tell them that they'd get ass worms if they ate this or that so they should leave it alone. They once asked me why I didn't get ass worms so I told them that my gut microbes were more sophisticated then theirs and they that I could handle this inconvenience.Yeah, they believed that one too.
So a few years later, here comes our third child. She's growing up and the older two are teaching her about life and why she should never eat raw sugar. It was about then that the older two were starting to doubt my wisdom but kept with my admonitions. The three of them were playing in the dirt outside a little later when the youngest got some earth worms in her little pants suit. That was it! They knew that dad was right all along because after all, the 2 year old was eating sugar and she got worms!
Not too much later, the kids got smart and looked up this worm story on the computer and confirmed their suspicions that dad was full of shit and they were right. They never really told me that they knew but I knew that they were old enough to, 1. Not believe me anymore, and 2. If they did still believe me, that their gut microbes would be able to handle this.
Of course my wife was very angry that I would stoop so low and further that the kids would actually believe me but in the end, she knew that I was not being cruel and that I was just doing what clown in me would do. So she shook her head and said that one day we would have grandchildren so I should try not to be too much of a dunderhead.
My daughter and granddaughter visit on a regular basis and I'm sure that even as a 15 month old, my grandbaby has been told to not believe everything that Pop-Pop has to say. But that doesn't stop me from trying!
No comments:
Post a Comment