A Line You Never Want to Hear from Your Child

The Christmas before last, most of Libby's family came in, from the four winds they are scattered, to stay for a week. Because they hadn't been together for, I don't know, umpteen Christmases, there was much rejoicing and gift giving. Among the gifts we received was a little stuffed animal that, we believe, her brother John gave to her (it was from ThinkGeek, so it could have been either John or Jamie that gave it to her, but I want to say John because I got a USB powered remote control car--which Gabe got ahold of and broke the second time I took it out to use it--also from ThinkGeek, and Libby thought it was John, too, so, if it was from James instead, sorry about that). All of the kids present that day received one, a small, plush representation of a venereal disease.

Libby's brother gave her The Clap. Ha! That's just fun to say. Gonorrhea. It's a small, gray, well, I don't know how to describe it because I never paid much attention in my science classes--instead focusing on the far more marketable Medieval Literature field, clearly where the money and the chicks are. Perhaps it's bi-segmented? Pod-like? Like a snowman that doesn't have a bottom third? Dunno. Here's a picture, you figure it out:

The Clap, as given to Libby by her brother.

The little toy has been sitting on one of the bookshelves in my office for the last year and a half. Several times I'd debated on giving it to Gabe to play with, but figured it was too funny to let be destroyed. But I also didn't really have any way to appreciate the humor of it beyond occasionally glancing it on the shelf, and I wasn't sharing the humor with anyone because nobody was seeing it. Thus, it wasn't really doing much for anyone--and it wasn't really performing the function it was designed for, either as a stuffed animal for someone to play with or as a humorous novelty to delight and amuse people who saw it. It just gathered some dust and sat in the same spot. In short, it's existence was a failure.

So, it was probably just as well that Gabe spotted it on the shelf as he was walking through from the bathroom and said, "I want it!"

"What?" I asked.

"That bunny! I want it!"

"Bunny?" I asked, mildly perplexed, and I looked over at the bookcase to where he was pointing. "Oooooh," I said as I grabbed the toy. "You want Gonorrhea?"

"Yes!" he exclaimed. "I want Gonorrhea to sleep with in my bed! It will make me happy!"

Hilarious.

Really, that's all there is to the story. I tried to get him to repeat the sentence in front of the camera, but it was failure. I think he did manage to repeat the word "gonorrhea," which is probably something that most three year olds make it through their lives never having said. I guess someday, when I show him this video, he'll realize just how charmed of a life he's really had, how special his youth is compared to those of others.

Or else he's really going to hate me for all the stuff I put on here. Guess we'll see.

Gonorrhea: nothing to clap at. Sometimes the old ones are the best ones. Here's him saying it. You'll have to pay attention because the video is only about ten seconds long, I think. What you can't see in the background--the reason why I cut this short without seeing where he'd go with it--is Norah grabbing Gabe's cup off the table and pouring the water in it over herself. I couldn't see it either as she was around the corner, so I turned the camera off instead of trying to catch her reaction. I'm not sure WHY that was my response, because it would have been more interesting than the rest of the video. But there you have it.