Little Billy was sitting across from me at the dinner table.
He was not eating his food.
He was fiddling around - messing with his ears.
I watched.
Like watching a little monkey.
He stopped.
He picked up his fork - took a bite of chicken.
It was then that I saw ...
He had been ...
STUFFING QUARTERS IN EACH OF HIS EARS - you know - flat like, stuffed in there sideways, filling the quarter-sized cartilage area (*mom squints her eyes trying to make out the COIN DENOMINATION*) .
He sat there and ate with those quarters in his ears.
I let him.
Then ...
Into the evening, I went to his room to say good-night.
I saw he was chewing on something and so I said, "Give me the gum - and go brush your teeth," I cupped my hand under his chin for him to spit the gum into my palm.
He spit it out ...
A RED RUBBER BAND!
(*Mom shakes off the squirrely chill that slithers across her neck - eeek!*)
A few days later ...
I was in his room straightening up.
I made his bed.
I picked up the dirty clothes off the floor.
I put books back on the book shelf.
Then ...
I peeled the ...
GUM FROM THE KNOB ON HIS NIGHTSTAND AND ...
THREW IT IN THE TRASH!
On the upside ... That kid!! He's like a bored little bubble-gum-chewin'-stickin'-quarters-in-his-ears zoo monkey that has too much time on his hands! And me ... I'm like the zoo keeper just watching the spectacle from the other side of the glass and ... only entering his cage every now and then ... to spray the poop off the walls!