Inappropriate Use of Super Glue

I don’t know what Santa puts in the stockings at your house, but here at the Psych Ward, he gets “creative” in his stocking stuffers (translation: desperate.) In addition to candy canes, chocolate “coal” and other random junky toys, Santa goes a little utilitarian. Everyone always gets new toothpaste, toothbrush, flossers (which will most likely get used for anything but teeth or shoved in the back of the drawer never to be used), fun pens, crazy socks and the like. The adults also receive things like Tylenol, breath mints, hand sanitizer and SuperGlue. We go through an alarming amount of SuperGlue at our house, because the PSW inmates’ motto in life is, “Drive it like you stole it.” (It’s a good thing we don’t live in Japan and do the whole Kintsugi method of repair — We’d be flat broke!)

As always, Santa came through on the Super Glue. I try my best to keep it out of reach from the inmates, but I guess that just seems to make it all the more tempting for First Born. The other day I found a tube of it sitting on the counter. “Hmmm…I don’t remember leaving it there.”

So I went and poked my head in the Warden’s office. “Did you use the SuperGlue recently?”

“No. Why?”

My shoulders drooped and I shook my head. “Well, if it wasn’t you, then that just means that First Born’s been up to something.”

“Hey First Born. What were you using the Super Glue for? And before you deny it, I know it wasn’t Dad, so it had to be you.”

“I don’t know. I don’t remember.”

Great. That meant it was something particularly devious and I was sure to find out what it was when I was either delousing his room or at some other inopportune moment.

That moment came a few days later when I was up to my elbows in sorting laundry. “Didn’t I just do all the laundry like ten minutes ago?!! How?! How does one person go through this many T-shirts? But wait. Shouldn’t there be more underwear? Where’s the underwear? Oh…still attached to the pants I see. Excellent.”

Just then, Young Son comes bounding over wearing only his Pokemon undies. “Tah Dahhhh!!! BEHOLD!” Then burst out into hysterical laughter.

On his head he was wearing a winter stocking hat with something sticking straight up off the top of it where the pom pom should go. I sighed. “What fresh hell is this?”

Young Son gleefully answered, “It’s a PENIS!” and then rolled around on the floor gasping for air between gales of laughter.

Yep. So it was. It was an eight inch penis made out of bright yellow modeling clay, complete with testicles and a surprising amount of detail. And how was it attached to the (brand new) stocking hat??? You guessed it. Super Glue. This stunt had First Born’s trademark all over it.

In addition to being annoyed that a brand new hat was basically ruined, my mind immediately came up with all the ways that First Born was planning on using said penis hat. Other than corrupting his little brother and sister, what if he wore it to a friend’s house? What would the mom think?!? Or what if he wore it to school?! I broke out in a cold sweat just thinking about that call from the principal.

I ripped the penis off, threw it in the trash and tossed the hat in the laundry that conveniently surrounded me.

Suddenly we heard First Born thundering down the hall yelling, “YOUNG SOOOOONNN!!! What did you DO!?! Where’s the PENIS!?!?! GIVE ME BACK THE PENIS!!!”

I turned to Young Son, “Dude. You better hide!”

First Born burst into the room, nostrils flaring, looking for his rat fink of a little brother. “Why did you have to go and show Mom for?!?! What were you thinking?!?!”

Then he turned to me. “Where is it?? Give me my penis back!!!”

At which point, I burst out laughing like…well…a pre-teen boy! “Really?! You’re really asking me where your penis is?!”

Oh. He did NOT like that. At. All. I don’t know if he was more angry that Young Son had gone and shown it to me, or more embarrassed that I had seen his weird pornographic headwear. He decided to stick with the anger part and tried to pound on his brother.

“Why did you think Mom would think that’s funny!??”

Now normally, he’s right. The funnier they think something is, the less I’m amused by it. And based on Young Son’s reaction, I was definitely not going to be amused by it.

But in this case, it was sorta funny. I mean I did cringe at the thought of what he was planning on using the hat for…and he did ruin a brand new hat in the making of it. But really. He’s eleven. That’s what boys that age do. They make jokes about penises and balls and farts and poop. Annoying? Yes. Abnormal? No.

After he calmed down later, I said, “Look. I love your creativity, but could you please harness your powers for GOOD?!” He sullenly agreed.

In the meantime, the penis has mysteriously gone missing from the trash. Perhaps he’s taken my advice to heart and he’s busy setting up his new millinery shop on Etsy. I’ll keep you updated.

Please note: I have not posted a picture of the detailed penis so I don’t get banned from Facebook or have the authorities knocking on my door.

Pranks from the Darth Side

Somehow I’ve managed to survive most of winter break with a few remaining shards of sanity. That’s not to say my children haven’t tried their best to break me. Considering the condition of my house and their things, “broken” seems to be their preferred state.

At least a few of their toys have stood the test of time. A couple of years ago, I found a four-foot tall Darth Vader figure on super duper clearance after Christmas and gave it to First Born for his February birthday. Darth has been an unwilling prop for of quite a few pranks in our house.

Poor Darth. He used to have a light saber, but Warrior Princess knocked him over within the first five minutes being in our house and it broke. Yeah. That was fun.
Like I said, broken is a constant state in our house.

For instance, one April Fools Day, he and Yoda were hanging out in First Born’s bed reading Star Wars books together. Or there was the time Darth was lurking in First Born’s closet in case I went in to search for contraband. (Luckily First Born was at school when I found him that time, because my scream would have been far too rewarding for First Born.)

Sadly, First Born did not find this as amusing as I did. What a dud.

Or there was the time I hid him in our bathroom to try to freak out the Warden when he was coming home late from his monthly poker game. I ended up freaking out myself, because I forgot Darth was in there when I stumbled into the bathroom later that night before the Warden even got home. *sigh* It probably wouldn’t have worked anyway, because I doubt it would have even fazed him. He would have just rolled his eyes and muttered things about how weird his wife was and questioned his reasons for marrying me in the first place.

Darth came out again the other day when Jiminy Cricket, his little brother and their mom were over. All was going so well — the littles were in the living room playing all things Paw Patrol, the bigs were upstairs doing stinky boy things and we moms were sitting in the kitchen enjoying a break from them. Suddenly we hear screaming from the littles, then the sound of our front door opening and them running outside yelling, “Darth Vader is outside!!”

Now most other moms may have been alarmed. Not Jiminy’s mom. In case you don’t remember, she survived The Epic Sleepover and has five kids of her own. The woman’s seen things and lived to tell about them. She merely raised an eyebrow and we strolled out to the front to see what was going down.

Here’s what we saw:

And then here’s what our neighbors or anyone driving by saw:

I’m just grateful no one called the cops and that our neighbors still speak to us.