Colt the Chef

From the time Colt was born, he was making a nuisance of himself. He wasn't like my first born, Scout, who had always stuck with me and, mostly, minded me. Colt had a mind of his own and didn't want to use mine. Sometimes he pushed me to the limits of my mind though. Take for instance the fact that when he was a toddler I was in dire fear of taking a bath unless someone else was around to watch the baby. I had friends who thought I was an over-anxious mother because I was always panicking whenever he got out of my sight. But true to form and against my better judgment he proved me right when the opportunity came along.

One day when Colt was seventeen months old and we were alone I decided that I could take a quick bath and be in and out before he had a chance to get into anything. Now I know that was a stupid assumption but that's what I thought.

I told Colt that I was going to take a quick bath and I wanted him to be a good boy while I was in the shower. I jumped in the shower and took about a ten minute bath, just hitting the highlights and not bothering to dawdle. When I got out of the tub I wrapped a towel around me and went to check on the baby.

I found Colt in the kitchen. He had pushed a chair up to the stove where he had been playing. I gasped at the mess. He had taken a piece of dry toast and smeared cold, congealed bacon grease all over it. He had made an open-faced grease sandwich. To top it all off, he had coated it with a generous layer of sugar from the sugar jar. Lordy, my baby made me a grease sandwich. What in the world would he be into next?

I got the video camera out and recorded it as proof: Colt, the chair, the sandwich, the sugar all over the stove top. The proof that it never paid to turn your back on him. There was no telling what he would get into if he wasn't watched constantly. Through it all Colt stood there grinning like a 'possum and proud as a peacock. That's my boy!

PIO

Help, I'm Stuck!

I went to Valley Point School for twelve years. The first grade was the hardest. I wanted to fit in with the other kids but it wasn't easy. Believe it or not, I was a little kid when I started to school at the age of six. I remember my mother and I visited the principal of the primary school before school started so that she could see that I was ready for school. I was a precocious child and she said she thought I would be fine starting to school with the other kids my age. It also didn't hurt that Mrs Brooker was a sturdy little petite woman who was no more than five feet tall.

I was in Mrs Owens room in the first grade and was in heaven. She smelled so good. She was a very sweet teacher and all the children loved her very much. We would gather at her desk at recess, and cluster around her, talking and laughing. Some of the kids started sitting on the rim of her grey metal trashcan and balancing on it. I saw different kids doing that. I thought I could do that.

One day I tried to sit on the rim of the trashcan but I didn't know how to balance like the other kids could do. I may have had a hard time because I was shorter than most of the kids and my arms didn't reach back far enought to help me balance. I slipped and found myself folded up like a Swiss army knife and wedged in the trashcan. When I tried to get up I saw that I couldn't get out by myself.

The kids whooped with laughter at my dilema. Mrs Owens tried to get me out but she couldn't. She and some of the kids had to tip the can sideways and pry me out. I was so embarrassed, but the worse was yet to come.

Mrs Owens was afraid that I had hurt my back so she made me lie down on the nearest little wooden table. She called the principal of the elementary school, who was at the building next door, and he came to check on me.

I remember lying on my belly, with boys and girls sitting at the table watching me, and waiting on the principal to come. When he did come in the classroom Mrs Owens explained how I had slipped and gotten stuck in the trashcan and what a hard time they had getting me out. Mrs Owens and Mr Davis were standing next to me beside the table.

Mrs Owens suddenly flipped my skirt-tail up over my back and showed Mr Davis my backside. I suppose they were looking for scratches or bruises but all I saw was a bunch of dumb boys grinning like a bunch of hyenas at me and my panties.

I was mortified. No amount of living would ever erase that shame from my memory and never again did I consider them harmless boys. They had leered at me with glee and I would never forget it. I suppose that was the first wedge that entered the relationship of all those kids that I knew throughout my school years. I always felt it was them against me. No wonder.

My back wasn't seriously hurt and the principal didn't have to call my moma but my ego was bruised. I can honestly say that I don't remember ever sitting on another trashcan again. The teachers in the primary school building put a stop to allowing children to sit on trashcans from that day forward.

That wasn't the only time I would be embarrassed in front of my classmates, or show my underwear. Being a kid isn't easy.

AS ALWAYS

PIO

What's the Poop?

Boys! You gotta love them. Although, sometimes it's mighty hard. I have two sons and when my oldest son was in the eighth grade he was a handful. He was always getting into trouble for little things. One day I was called to school because of something he had done.

Scout"s teachers assured me that he was usually a quiet and well behaved young man but they had recently had some trouble with him and were needing my help. I asked what he had done and they looked at one another sheepishly. The said they had found out that Scout had been concealing something in his locker. They confronted him and made him open the locker. That is where they found the "offensive" item in his locker. By now I was getting really worried and upset since I had no idea what they were talking about. It turned out that Scout had hidden dog crap in his locker. What the . . .? What a dummy!

I was stunned. "What in the world could he have been thinking?" I asked. They told me that they had investigated and found out that he had snuck the dog crap into school with the intent of putting it in another boys locker as a joke. I asked who the other kid was and they told me. It was a nice young boy who had been on the school bus on the field trip I had gone on with Scout and his class. But that's another story.

For some reason Scout had decided that he didn't like this boy and had intended on putting dog crap in his locker. I have no doubt that several boys were in on it. Some kid had snitched to the teacher, so the rumor mill was working.

I was really upset that Scout would do something so mean and malicious to another kid but I had what I like to call a "cartoon" in my head.  I couldn't help visualizing Scout creeping around the backyard with a little sandwich bag following our little dog all around the yard waiting for her to poop! I couldn't help it. I know it was wrong but I thought it was hilarious. I told him he shouldn't have been so mean and dumb. Every time he did anything at school somebody always told on him. I know he was wrong but this absolutely took the cake. He cracks me up.

It's fair to say that Scout was called on the carpet more than once and you don't know how happy I was when he got out of school but I have to say this was the funniest parent-teacher conference I ever went to.

AS ALWAYS PIO