A field trip to the theater to watch a play with a class full of second graders and my 8-year-old son, what could possibly go wrong?
First thing we arrive to eat our picnic lunch and have a frolic on the play ground. As Aiden was unpacking our lunch, I notice the fried chicken, the Main Event, was missing! Could it have been misplaced while Aiden was sorting through our lunch bag earlier in the morning? Possibly!
After a rather uneventful, well, lets just say it, a very boring production of the “Villager and the Magic Stone” we jumped onto the bus for the ride home, without so much as a bathroom break. All the soda I drank at lunch to make up for a lack of protein was beginning to catch up to me.
But we were on the way home and I was watching the mile markers fly by, when suddenly across the aisle from me, and pointed very much in my direction, the little boy with the stomach ache proved to all of us he was not imagining his symptoms.
I got puked on.
So after a hasty clean up, still not terribly close to home, I asked Aiden to tell me a a story about Indians to fill the time. I am not sure whether it was Aiden’s inability to hear me correctly, ever, the bus driving down the rumble strip, again, or the fact that I had my hand cupped over my nose and mouth to keep the smell of vomit from overtaking me that made Aiden think I said Squindians, but like a trooper he jumped in.
“Squindians,” he said, “are little men that eat raw fish.” For a bottomless pit, garbage disposal and growing boy, all of life seems to revolve around food. It is no wonder his story would start that way.
“Really, raw fish,” I said, “their breath must be terrible!” Worse than the smell on the bus? Doubtful.
Yes, raw fish and live squid!
Is that all?
No sometimes they nibble the fungus that grows between your toes!
Really, well that is handy.
Yes, especially if you are being attacked by squid.
Ah... yes.
What else do Squindians do?
Well, they chop firewood. Even though they are very small, they easily chop firewood. And if they chop off their heads, they just grow back!
This from the boy who not long ago nearly lost a toe in an adventure similar to this. Re-growing appendages must me a useful sounding phenomena to an accident prone 8-year-old boy.
And - when their heads grow back their faces are clean! They don’t even have to wash them!
Oh- autonomy is sounding handier yet!
What else
Sometimes you can keep them for a pet.
Do they make good pets?
Yes, except the red ones. They have outrageous attitudes!
Outrages attitudes! Where does he come up with this?
What do you do if you get one with an outrageous attitude? I ask.
Eat them, he says. Again with the food.
What do they taste like?
Like Jelly Beans.
Sure, why would something that eats raw fish, live squid and toe jam taste like anything other than Jelly Beans?
What flavor Jelly Beans? I ask.
Well the blue ones taste like raspberry and the red ones are red hot!
That’s sensible. How long do they usually live?
Well they live as long as you live. But if you die, they die ten minutes later because they miss you so bad.
This assuming you haven’t already eaten the loyal little critters
Aiden went on to describe some of the more complex, and comic-book-style features that Squindians possess. But civilization was looming, and my detention on the yellow flu asylum was coming to an end
Tomorrow maybe I can get him to draw us a picture, (in between meals.)
A little home grown fun.
Thanks for joining us here at the barnyard!
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