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| "AMERICA'S FUNNIEST HUMOR"TM
SHOWCASE
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April / May 2006 Contest Results |
My Kingdom For
A Lego
By
Cheryl O'Donovan, Illinois
I was driving
along a strange highway, passing a ramp to the Manson Family farm, when
my baby son began to cry. Pulling over, ignoring the feral pack of
wolves near the Stuckey’s sign, I opened the van’s back door. He had
dropped his pacifier. Unfortunately, he saw it in my hands. He began
screaming. Blood-curdling shrieks. I felt a headache coming on. And the
wolves ran.
Desperate, I thought of what Perfect Mom would do. She wouldn’t give her
baby a pacifier that had dropped to the carpet splattered with stains
and potentially infested with flesh-eating bacteria. No. She would
sterilize it in her trusty Germ-O’Cide Kit, or extract a clean one
wrapped in cellophane from her purse. But I am not perfect. I
rationalized that human saliva is already rancid with hyena-like goo, a
substance so foul that it makes a gelding out of flesh-eating bacteria.
So, alone, stressed, I did what any Springer guest would do. I popped
the pacifier back into his mouth.
Oh, yes, I’m haunted by that decision, but the pacifier signaled
something much bigger, a lifelong pattern of beloved lost things and
parental misery. Until the item is reunited with my child, there will be
no peace in the valley.
Over the years, I noted the missing item got smaller. Missing items
ranged in size, according to my sons’ ages: a beloved teddy bear that
appeared to have mange and needed immediate medical attention, a frayed
blanky that looked as though it had been deep-fried, a
breach-of-contract puzzle piece from Bob the Builder.
The routine was the same. The piece went missing, thus launching our
quest for it in our toy-swallowing house. Archeologists could find
chunks of Mayan pottery in the Amazon thicket easier than we could
locate a missing item.
But we got better at it, increased our speed and timing, kept our
children’s screams from reaching Boeing engine decibels. Uh-huh. My
husband and I believed we had mastered search-and-recovery.
Until our introduction to the Lego set.
Detected only under microscope, Lego pieces arrive in various plastic
bags. Color-coded, aerodynamic, they fly everywhere the instant a small
child’s fingers come into contact. Their sharp edges are ideal for
embedding into flesh, especially an adult’s foot, when mom or dad is
staggering through a darkened house at 2:32 a.m. to get to the bathroom
or assist puking offspring.
At birthday parties, my sons rip open their packages with glee.
Inevitably the thing we dread most, the Lego box, emerges. My husband
sighs at well-meaning family members who buy such toys, glares at me if
I buy one. Putting the kit together will take the patience of a monk
toiling over parchment and the insight of a physicist mining new math
formulas.
“I always get stuck with this,” he complains.
I cheerily suggest it’s an opportunity to bond with the boys. He snarls
at me.
We both know.
Until that 975-piece Lego battle cruiser with working guns and twelve
seamen is assembled, there will be no peace in the valley.
Months later, my husband is gingerly applying the last piece with
tweezers. His eye twitches uncontrollably. His fingers tremble from
adrenaline and sleep deprivation. My youngest son bounds from the living
room, knocking into the stern. Pieces go flying. Red-faced, my husband
chokes back expletives. I keep the phone handy in the event his blood
pressure ruptures his spleen.
My kids and I freeze. His black funnel cloud mood passes. Grunting, jaw
locked, my husband picks up the tweezers. He shakes his head. Relieved,
my sons and I breathe again. Hours later, the battleship is almost
complete.
Except for one missing Lego.
“Where is this (censored) piece that goes to the turret?” Teeth gritted,
face creased with strain, my husband jabs a finger at the instruction
booklet.
Gazing around the clutter of our house, my heart sinks. My eyes flicker
back to my mentally unstable spouse. My younger son’s lower lip quivers.
My older son is positioned near the door, ready to evacuate. And the dog
looks guilty.
I dive under the table, fingers probing carpet, praying. Please. Please,
dear God, let that infernal Lego be there. I will contact several
divisions of Scouts, alert volunteer firemen, secure the National Guard,
anyone with access to metal detectors and who can physically restrain my
husband.
Because. You know.
Until that obscure, tiny piece is located, there will be no peace in the
valley.
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