UFOs (Unexplainably Flushed Objects) and Other Abberations

My son came into the kitchen crying. In his hand he held a shoe. My husband and I paused to ask what was the matter.


“My toe!” he yowled. “It has stink on it!”

Some things just cannot be explained. Among the unexplainable is my son’s fascination with the toilet. This past week, he flushed his toothbrush, thus causing a major overflow and a run to the store for an auger to repair the problem. I never did retrieve the toothbrush, but a few days later when the toilet overflowed again, I was able to rescue a long bobby pin from a sewer-y death. Our toilet now flushes as it should, but for how long, I would not consider safe to guess.

That one particular toilet has also survived the flushing of Littlest Pet Shops. The one downstairs, however, saw much greater difficulty in the processing of two large bars of soap. I blogged about that episode already and may likely do so again considering the incredible diligence and persistence of my flushing wonder, Tiny Man.

He also really likes lotion—mine in particular. He wants to emulate his mother desperately and is obsessed with all things feminine that are designed to improve one’s appearance or smell. I certainly can understand this, but what I cannot fathom is that in complete anger with me, he will eat my lotion to prove his point. Just this weekend, I found three mangled bottles demonstrating his complete outrage that I would put both he and his sister in time out for fighting. He put his hands on his hips and proudly confessed, “I ate yo’ yotion!”

“Boys,” shrug people who meet my son. “It’s just the way boys are.” This is not at all an acceptable explanation to me. I cannot understand why the benevolent God who made this earth has chosen to pair women with such strange and hard to comprehend creatures, creatures that cannot leave the toilet alone, eat lotion, and have other vile habits, yet somehow fall into a state of despair when their feet smell less than pleasing.

Why does a boy do these things? I asked my son this. He answered simply. Of course I knew this already: Cause I want to.