After a particularly hardcore session of Webkinz, during which he mined for precious gems, tackled fairies in the Charm Forest, and added a new trellis to his platypus’ yard, Wee Niblet stood up and staggered away from the computer.
Leaning uncomfortably against the bed, he groused, “My legs fell asleep.”
“Eep opp ork ahah, scoobie-shoo-doo, boopity ba-ba-ba,” I hummed in response as I folded the laundry, unable to find a caring bone in me. Rather, deeply immersed in my non-mommy headspace, I considered the possibility that my life, even though I’m 40, might not yet be completely set. If I could toss out scat like that with no rehearsal to speak of, the distinct possibility existed that I might be featured as JocelyNummy on Fergilicious’ next album.
“No, rewwy, Mommy. My feet have all prickles in them. It’s like I’m getting my shots for my five-year-old check-up again, all at once, ‘cept only in my feet, a million times over. I need for it to stop now.”
“Well, keep on keepin’ on, kid–try kickin’ it Pre School, for reals–and it’ll go away,” I counseled, folding another towel.
“It’s so bad, though, I won’t ever be able to sleep because it won’t ever go away,” Niblet moaned, launching the Increased Desperation Triggers Sympathy strategy.
“Dude, you have a computer to play games on and a bunch of Webkinz and a new trellis, and your platypus ate a big plate of noodles tonight and stuff. I don’t really feel for you here. Take your pain and your pout and stomp them around the room a little bit; that’ll get the blood flowing again,” I recommended, wondering if Craig Ferguson would wear a blue or a yellow tie during his monologue that night and if he might ever need me to come on to work the audience into a frenzy with my scatting virtuosity.
“But Mommy, it’s so bad. You need to feel my feet. They are so prickly you will shriek when you touch them because it will hurt you too. You should feel them to see how much they hurt.”
So I did. I bent down and touched his paws. And those prickles of his felt like rays of burning sunlight had been taken and jammed into shards of ice which were then packaged inside diamonds and scratched along a blackboard covered with jalapeno juice that squirted into an eyeball that was being held open with toothpicks coated in barbed wire that had been heated in molten lava for six minutes. Jehosephat, but Whinebot was right. How he managed to contemplate which jammies to wear at the same time that kind of torment was roiling around inside his body–well, I’d never admired him more. Letting go of his feet, I fell to the ground, paralyzed.
“Um, Mommy?”
Croaking from the floor, weakly, whimpering, I whispered a, “Booooy? Get your father. That’s right. Get Daddy. Mommy’s dying from touching your prickles. She may need a lemontini to restore a regular heartbeat.”
“Hey, Mommy. Get up now. I have to use the potty and am going to need a wiper-suhviper. You can do your scat thing while I do mine.”
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Despite my willingness to mess with his head and play along, I’m pretty sure Niblet will soon outgrow his certainty that interior pain can be felt by those outside of his body.
Until his first acid trip in college, of course. Then I’ll have to be all “Wow, babes, but the walls ARE melting. Yea, your hand is totally bigger than that chair. Ooh, yea, that scab on your leg is on fire.”
What?
Like I’m not going to be there?
What else I got to do? Wait for Fergie and Craig Ferguson to call?
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