electric mist

top cluck

Christmas morning, and gift carnage, and so much strewn wrapping paper, we may never find the cat again, and all is good. And you know how it is that the majority of the time, the kids like the boxes as much as the gifts, or they'll like the cheapest thing you get much much more than the big deal present? Well, to continue that tradition, both the boys loved, coveted, and drooled over their brand spanking new "super balls" -- the mega bouncy take-out-every-knick-knack ball for a dollar at the dollar store that I bought at the last minute to put in their stockings. Which Luke, 22, managed to bounce into the fire in the fireplace after I repeatedly told him NOT TO BOUNCE IT IN THE HOUSE, TO WAIT 'TIL HE GOT TO HIS OWN HOUSE. He snatched it out of the fire, and it's now got little flame-ish swoopy changes in the color. Or their favorite may have been the toy (plastic, 1 foot long) bow and arrows their dad gave them WITHOUT MY KNOWLEDGE OR PERMISSION, PEOPLE. The package in which Carl had placed: cotton balls, vaseline and a lighter. To make flaming arrows, you see. Which, of course, they did immediately but at least shot them out onto the patio area so they couldn't catch the house on fire. (The vaseline makes the cotton balls burn longer.)(Oh, the joy.)

And Carl's favorite? Well, it's probably a tie between the DVD of all of the Road Runner and other Looney Tunes or the:

Rubber chickens. Five, because he must have asked me a million times for the last two years if anyone was getting him one. (The little ones are key chains, because everyone really needs a rubber chicken key chain. Right?)

Carl had loaned his original rubber chicken to his sister (he's 45, she's 43, I do not make these things up, people), and she wouldn't give it back. She also has one of those invisible dog walking leash things that belongs to him, the kind you get from Disney? That she's strapped his chicken into so it looks like she's walking the rubber chicken. So I figured after hearing about that chicken for two years, I would get him FIVE, because really, that would be WAY MORE THAN NECESSARY to shut him up about the chicken. And did that work? Of course not. He immediately got a kick out of them and then decided, wow, he really wants FIFTY of them now because he wants to make a RUBBER CHICKEN CHANDELIER. And dress them all up in little aviator caps and goggles and parachutes. And maybe even wire them and hook up the mechanics so that they could dance to music. Or fly in some sort of synchronized pattern. He's going to have them all be "Top Cluck" fliers, the top 10% recruited to fly for their country. Or something.

I'd call the men with the funny little white coats, but he'd probably recruit them into making the damned thing.

Posted by toni at December 25, 2004 12:43 PM