Foot fetish
There was an old lady who swallowed a horse…
Recently I was invited to read a story of Tyler’s choice to his kindergarten enrichment class. His resounding request: “There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly.” I was reluctant. If you recall, it is a story about a gluttonous old woman who kills herself by ingesting a series of live farm animals. But the more I tried to change my boy’s mind, the more adamant he became.
Story time arrived. All the way through, I dreaded delivering that famous last line. Finally, there came the inevitable.
“There was an old lady who swallowed a horse…”
I paused for a moment and held my breath.
“…She’s dead, of course.”
I quietly closed the book and waited. I had prepared some information about death, the grieving process and the Great Beyond for the questions that were sure to follow. A little blonde with flashing Dora sneakers initiated the Q&A.
“I want to see it,” she demanded.
“I’m sorry?”
“The picture of her body.”
“The picture of…? No, I’m sorry. There’s no picture.”
“Did the horse die in her stomach?” piped in the wild-haired boy across from her.
“I’ll bet her stomach was shaped like a horse,” speculated a sweet little thing with beads dangling from her braids.
“They’ll have to dig a really big hole to bury her,” surmised another munchkin-esque voice, but I didn’t bother to find its source. Instead, I was staring at the teacher, my eyes imploring her for assistance.
She laughed. It was a borderline maniacal laugh with a message: “Welcome to my world.”
When Don Henley said this was the end of the innocence, he didn’t know the half of it.
Come in, Santa…
“Mama, can I have a Phineas and Ferb shirt for Christmas?”
“I don’t know,Tyler. That’s something you’ll have to ask Santa for.”
“Oh. But I don’t have his number.”
“Well see, that’s what’s so magical about Santa. You don’t need a telephone to reach him. All you have to do is talk to him in your head, and he’ll hear you.”
“Oh.”
(After a silent moment)
“Mama, will you ask Santa for me? He didn’t say ‘what.'”
Hold the Hallelujahs!
Today I received my first Christmas card, heard “The Little Drummer Boy” three times on the radio, and was wished “happy holidays” by a cashier. Who began the tradition of taking the fall—the best season of the year—and cutting it a month short? Didn’t we already have a white Halloween? You can all keep tressing your trees and singing your hallelujahs and sipping eggnog, but as for me, I’m still holding out for a decent remake of Halloween 2011. Trick or treat, dammit! And to my fellow procrastinators who haven’t yet purchased a single Christmas gift…unite!