Popcorn Anyone?

Posted on January 13, 2015

Five kids. Count ‘em: one…two…three…four…five. Our personal handful.

Each amazing in their own right, and each starkly different. The uniqueness of each of our minions has been both fun to watch, and challenging to figure out. Any of you with kids know that what works with one, doesn’t mean it works with the others. That would simply be too easy.

Sometimes this “uniqueness” causes happenings that are beyond description. Sometimes it’s the source of scenarios that otherwise would remain innocuous. Sometimes, well sometimes….

Aaron is our only son. The male heir with four sisters. This young man has endured an abundance of estrogen charged young ladies most of his life. I think he has navigated this marvelously well and has managed to maintain his “manliness” throughout. What he has put up with from these blonde siblings while growing up has been more than entertaining to watch. However, sometimes it wasn’t his sisters that got him, but he himself.

One of AJ’s quirks is an acute abhorrence to secondhand food. Maybe this is changing now that he has his own daughter. We parents all know what it’s like to nibble from their plate, or finish off their leftovers; providing the leftovers are still recognizable of course. Time will tell. But suffice it to say, his daughter’s food withstanding, there aren’t too many things that gross him out worse than pre-nibbled and picked over food. Bleck!

On the day of the ill-fated event Annie, Aaron, and Abbey were in our living room lounging around after their movie had finished. No one was in a hurry to go anywhere and the atmosphere was extremely relaxed. Aaron spotted the bowl of popcorn peacefully resting atop the coffee table where it had been placed sometime during the movie.

Aaron loves popcorn. Do any of you remember the scene from Finding Nemo where Nemo is in the fish tank at the dentist office? One of his fellow inmates spots the bubbles rising from the open chest and goes berserk shouting, “Bubbles! Bubbles!” That’s Aaron when he spots popcorn. “Popcorn! Popcorn!”

He snagged the bowl and quickly peaked at its contents. No popcorn left in sight, just the “old maids” that didn’t have the nerve to do what was right under heat and pressure. Did this daunt this young man? No way! He picked up some of those biddies and popped them in his mouth. He was busy swishing them around with great satisfaction when Annie piped up and said, “Abbey already sucked all the salt off of those earlier.”

You could audibly hear the world stop spinning at this point. Aaron momentarily froze. Recognition of what he had done quickly spread across his face. His eyes widened appreciably, while his brain’s synapses were making the necessary connections. Then it registered. Secondhand food was not only in his mouth, but he had been swirling it around with great relish. Out came the full length of his tongue as he quickly flapped it around trying to get rid of those defiling “old maids”.

His gyrations and obvious disapproval for having “those things” in his mouth sent his sisters into immediate hysterics. Who knows what he actually did once they were out of his mouth because they were too busy laughing their backsides off to notice. He may have wiped his tongue on something or ran quickly out of the room in search of some liquid to rinse away this abomination in his mouth. I have no idea, but surely the look on his face must have pleaded, “Tell me it isn’t so. Please tell me it isn’t so!”

Popcorn anyone?