Post a Comment On: A Nod to Nothing

I was at daycare today to pick Eryn up, and the teacher had made them homemade play-dough. Yellow, with banana extract. Green with mint extract. And all of it made by some mystical combination of hand lotion and who knows what else. I knew about the hand lotion because they had to hand lotion the play-dough every once in a while when the lotion leached out of the green and yellow lumps into their hands, and it all started to fall apart. Very Hannibal Lecter.

So I was sitting there, on a low table, waiting for Eryn to finish playing, when one of the kids, Brianna, came over, and pointed at my lip. "What's that?" she asked. I feared she was pointing at some new growth, perhaps pre-cancerous. I touched my face, then pulled my hand back down, confused. She clarified, "Those whiskers."

"Oh," I said. "By 5:00 o'clock, I start to grow back..."

At which point she stuck her finger on my lip, and bounced it off into my mouth, giving me a great big helping of banana-flavor, plus lotion flavor, plus play-dough flavor, plus who knows what other mystery ingredient, in my mouth.

Ish.

I would have given someone a twenty for a toothbrush and tube of paste. I never want to taste a strange child's finger again. That should be a motto.