Silly Putty. What joy you brought to a child in the early 80′s! And now your joy has spread to the next generation.
The Firstborn received a small plastic red “egg” from his Mo-Mo (a.k.a. Grandmother) as a stocking stuffer on Christmas morning. He thought he was just getting an egg to throw around and in which to store his ‘treasures’.
(‘Treasures’ can be anything from a piece of gravel to a discarded wing nut.)
Much to his suprise, the egg was filled with what he thought was the largest piece of gum he had ever seen.
With eyes wide open as if he had just met Spiderman, he said, ” I would like to have that gum, please.”
I informed him that it wasn’t gum. “This is Silly Putty.”
*BLANK STARE*
“But I like gum,” he replied.
I explained that even though it looked like gum, he was not to put it in his or any other living creature’s mouth.
He seemed somewhat disinterested in my disseration of the sceientific properties of Silly Putty until I mentioned that it bounced like a ball.
To him… something that bounces means that it must be thrown.
Needlesstosay, the better part of the next five minutes was spent with me rolling the Silly Putty into a ball, The Firstborn throwing it on the floor, and then him chasing it like Rocky Balboa trying to catch a chicken.
Over the next two weeks that Silly Putty…renamed “Gooey Gum” (we have no idea where he came up with that name for it) was bounced off of every flat surface in our house, and The Wife and I started finding pieces of it everywhere.
Of course it was in the carpet…
And in The Subsequent child’s hair…
On various pieces of furniture…
In the bathtub…
On the dashboard of the minivan…
And in The Wife’s purse.
But the most interesting place of all…
On the dog.
What you must understand is that our dog is going on 15 years old and basically hates his life and wishes he were dead. He especially doesn’t like kids…not even our kids. So the fact that The Firstborn was able to adhere the “Gooey Gum” to the dog is still a mystery.
And no, we didn’t remove the “Gooey Gum” from the dog…like I said…he’s 15 years old and I don’t think he likes us either.