" Shut up! Or I'll wound your inner child!" - Beavis, Beavis and Butthead

 

The Astrodome, which, while being very dome-y, is not very astro-y. Heck, I don’t think it’s suited to travel in outer space at all. I checked, and the darn thing has a lot of concrete in it. I know the Russians experimented with concrete spacecraft, but I just don’t think this is a good design for a spacecraft.

Many times I sit down at this keyboard on Sunday night, Internet, and I wonder just exactly what might be interesting to chat about from the previous week. Oh, sure, sometimes you might get a long diatribe about the potential pitfalls of being near a wild Pugsley during a spaghetti dinner, and how it turns out that ear wax is relatively soluble in tomato sauce. Maybe it’s the acidity of the tomato?

Instead, Internet, this week I have tons to tell you, and have the luxury of picking and choosing. I guess I’ll start off with The Call.

I’m at work, happily doing whatever it is I do when I’m not using my body as a chemical treatment plant for coffee, when the phone rang. I suppose the phone is supposed to ring from time to time, but rarely does The Mrs. call me later in the afternoon. The conversation was short and clipped.

“Minor emergency center. Now.”

I made it there before her.

I could tell that The Mrs. wasn’t on top of her game, since she parked in the lot due east of the parking lot she needed to be in. The Mrs. walked cross-country across an open lot holding Pugsley’s hand, and I saw The Boy clutching a blood soaked rag to the back of his nugget. If only Pugsley were playing a drum, The Boy a fife, and The Mrs. carrying a thirteen-star US flag, the picture would have been complete.

“What happened? Did the neighbors finally launch an invasion?” I have been predicting that the neighbors, who claim they need something called “lebensraum,” would cross the border, perhaps with tanks, or more likely a Mad-Max style lawn mower. Perhaps it was the Home Owners’ Association venting on our lawn care practices?

No. Turns out that it was much more mundane, since The Boy was playing with The Mrs. (she was ticking him) and he took a step back. And fell. Backward. Into the concrete divider stones that prevent the invasion of the lawn into the flower bed.

Ouch. Turns out that’s worth fifteen staples. When they indicated that they were going to staple his noggin shut, The Boy decided that wasn’t at all what he wanted. “No, you can’t do that.”

I calmly explained that these weren’t normal staples, but that, in fact, they were mechanical closure devices that depended upon the use of mildly deformed metal to hold multiple surfaces together. Which, of course, is exactly like a regular staple, but it shut him up.

We explained to The Boy that every Boy ends up with something sewn up – if you get out of childhood without a good wicked scar or two, you simply did it all wrong.

So, since the medical folks were worried, he was put on a liquid diet for the next 24 hours. Which meant – shakes, pudding, yogurt, Jell-O®, but, sadly, no Pez™. I can inform you that nothing cheeses off a little brother more than watching his big brother eat pudding for the main course of lunch, followed by pudding for desert, and ice cream if he was good.

Thankfully, The Boy was able to go to Pinewood Derby©, wherein his car finished respectably (faster than last year, but not enough for a first place, though two of his runs were wicked fast).

His mechanical fastening system closing up his noggin wound will be removed sometime next week. The Boy was philosophical about his rough week.

“I’m going outside to play.”

It’s nice to be eight.