Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Someday Maybe He'll Wrestle An Alligator

It's nearly four hours since I left home and I've yet to get the call that Carter cut off his hand so I'm supposing it was okay to let him use the box cutters. After all he was being supervised by the babysitter and it's not like we gave him an axe for Chrissake.

It went something thing like this:

"Mom, will you set up a play date for me? (our babysitter) says it's okay if one of my friends comes over."

"No, that's not such a good idea, Carter."

(If the babysitter only knew the hell that could be raised.)

"Why don't we cut out the doors and windows for your recycled city?"

My husband brought home three appliance boxes for the project and they're just waiting for the creativity to flow.

"Can I cut out the boxes?"

"I'll cut them out."

"Oh, why can't I? I've used boxcutters before."

"When?"

"Dad let me use them. He lets me use them all the time."

"Are you serious?"

"Okay, he let me use them one time."

"I'll wait and you draw the doors and windows and I'll cut them out."

Heavy sigh: "Okay, I'll go get a sharpie."

He comes back and starts to draw an elaborate matrix of windows and doors. There's no way I'm going to be able to cut them all out before it's time for me to leave. Finally the babysitter offers to do it. Great.

"Mom, can I please I cut out the cardboard?"

"I'll watch him," the babysitter offers.

So I said yes.

That's right. No! Hell no to the play date. Yes! Why not? To using the box cutters.

Lesser of two evils folks. Lesser of two evils.

When I came out one last time to check on him he was cutting out small windows and holding the instrument dangerously close the blade.

I played with a real bow and arrow when I was eight years old and I only got shot in the head once. You can't even tell now.

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