John John was recently sick – high fever, general malaïse. You know. Sick. Of course, as soon as he was getting better, Koko came down with the same symptoms. Unfortunately, I’d run out of those ear thermometer shields by then, so had to go pick some up from the pharmacy and took John John with me.
We walked in to the Walgreens and went straight to the cold and flu aisle in search of those shields. They were, happily, easy to find and our shopping excursion was blissfully brief. “Let’s go,” I said to John John, who was rubbernecking all around the medicinal displays.
One in particular had drawn his attention. It was a little card jutting out from a cold product, calling you to come and buy it for congestion relief. The poor cartoon woman on the ad looked miserable. Red nose, watery eyes rolling back in her head, a tissue in hand, and corks up her nostrils. I’ve felt just that way before.
“Why did she have corks in her nose, Mama?” the ever-inquisitive one asked.
We were walking toward the check out already, and there was a line at the counter. A perfect chance to kill some time while simultaneously growing some empathetic reasoning and logic in the boy, my parental-self thought.
“Well,” I asked, “How would you feel if you had corks in your nose?”
He considered this with some seriousness and thought.
“Angry,” he finally replied.
Then, “Mama, why are you laughing? What’s funny?”
Nothing, my dear. Absolutely nothing.
CSN also said: Teach Your Parents Well. Clearly that is happening.