Randy and I have four children.
When I say children, I mean three of them are adults and one of them is in the final sprint out of childhood. My older son turned 28 a few days ago. Little sister will be 30 next week, and her sister is so firmly entrenched in her 30s, that she might as well be 40.
(Just kidding, big sister)
She’s only 32.
All of our children are intelligent. They are spawning new children who are also talented and intelligent.
My baby boy, Joey, was something when he was very small.
He had a vocabulary of around 20 words by the time he was 10 months old. He started reading at age 3. The summer before he started kindergarten, he read Animal Farm.
At the time, I wasn’t surprised he could read the words. He had been reading for two years by then. Plus, he constantly looked for new things to try. I didn’t think, however, that there was any way he was comprehending what he read. So I asked him “Joey, what do you think of the book?” And he responded “I’m pretty sure the pigs are going to take over.”
I stood corrected.
So when I tell you about the following exchange I had with my son, you know that I am not making fun of a kid with limited intelligence. This happened with my seemingly normal, above average intelligence, child.
Joey: So, mom, someone left a box of candy by the dumpster at work.
Me: Hmmmm
Joey: Yeah, it was still wrapped in cellophane, so we took it inside and put it in the walk in freezer.
Me: Why?
Joey: So we could eat it.
Me: Are you fucking kidding me? You picked up a box of chocolate by a goddamn dumpster and you ATE it? I would have thought by now I wouldn’t have to say “Joey…don’t eat food left by a dumpster”.
Joey: It was really good.
Me: For all that is fucking holy. Seriously. Don’t do that. I don’t care if it was wrapped up. Someone could have poisoned it or pissed on it.
Joey: Yeah, after me and a girl at work ate some of it, someone said that it could have been poisoned.
Me: Exactly.
Joey: It wasn’t poisoned though. I checked.
Me: You are going to have to explained to me how you checked.
Joey: I ate a few more pieces.
At that point, I was laughing too hard to be mad at him. Also, it’s kind of nice when you family hands you blog material gift wrapped like this.
…in the movies the bad guys still manage to pierce the wrappers with needles that although they are really really fine, still suffice to transfer the poison from the syringe to the chocolate… does the boy never watch movies?
Right??? Plus, it’s just really gross to do that.
That’s funny!
It really did make me laugh when he said that.
Plus, hey…someone threw it out FOR A REASON. Gah.
Right? For all that is holy…..
god, yes….
But… but… it was chocolate! Hard to resist chocolate, even “dumpster” chocolate. 🙂
I found a little piece of what looked like either a little hard candy or a baby aspirin on the ground at recess when I was probably in 1st/2nd grade. I remember I was so tempted to eat it, but I resisted, knowing it may not be candy. Guess it didn’t matter that it was on the ground.
I would have eaten it. I loved baby aspirin.
Oh Lord.
I know. He said it was really good.
When my kids were 4, they were playing at our apartments and found a string of what to them looked liked M&Ms, but were wrapped in cellophane. The boy child started eating them. The girl child came back and ratted him out. we couldn’t find any markings on the pills so we held onto the belief that they were nothing. Much later that evening, while we had guests over, we hear “Oooooowwww”. Going to his room we saw a trail of shit all the way to the bathroom. Mystery solved. The pills were laxatives.
I guess that could have been much worse…
I knew there were scientists that tested experiments on themselves, and went Googling. Salk injected himself with his vaccines AND, my source said he ‘smeared gonorrhea on his penis’! Sir Isaac Newton stuck a needle in his eye and dug around the back of his eyeball looking for something or other. Maybe poisoned chocolate.
Joe is following in noble and insane footsteps.
My first job, at 12, was working for my dad, when he started a crop dusting business in Australia’s outback. With my brother at the other end of a field, I marked out a section at the boundary, and my dad would come buzzing down and drop his fragrant load of pesticide. We’d always get the blow over. As an independent contractor, I was responsible for my own industrial safety standards. As you can see, I made sure pesticides were safe for all children to bathe in.
Thank you, Joe. I am on the lookout now for free chocolate left in dumpsters. I’d be willing to bet they were left not by biological terrorists, but a ticked off woman who wouldn’t accept some man’s gift and apology.
Hahaah…awesome. I will make sure the boy sees this comment…he will love it.
I mean, it WAS chocolate. You have to give him that.
That was pretty much what he said.
Message to Joey: I’d like to buy you the beverage of your choice. If and when you’re of age it can have alcohol in it.
The chocolate was still wrapped. He’s smart enough to know that as long as it’s wrapped it’s good, and he’s too young to have seen the episode of Columbo where a chef kills people with a poisoned wine bottle opener.
One time I found a wrapped candy bar on the street, and of course I ate it. I was with my friend Adam who freaked out. I pointed out that it was still in the wrapper. It couldn’t have been tampered with. He said, “Somebody at the factory could have ejaculated on it!” Well, yeah, and if you think like that you might as well move into a cave in outer Shitholia and watch over your bean poles day and night.
Oh, and one more thing: he should watch Columbo, not because it’ll teach him a lesson, but Peter Falk is just awesome.
I LOVED Columbo! Yeah, he’d make fun of it. I’ll let him know he’s got a drink waiting for him. 🙂
In his defense, why let good chocolate go to waste? I think chocolate automatically sanitizes itself. I think that’s a scientific theory. Don’t mock me.
Not gonna lie…I had similar thoughts.
I love his “research” method to find out if it was poisoned or not–he ate more! Hilarious.
Yeah..I laughed my ass off when he said that.
Did your once brilliant child suffer a brain injury or something?! I can’t think why else he’d be the canary in a coal mine, even it if *was* chocolate.
Nope. No brain injuries. And he wasn’t the only one, a few people he worked with ate it as well.
Oh Lordy this is priceless!!!!
It made my night. I mean, other than i wish he had made a better choice.
I feel I must point out the chocolate was left BY the dumpster and not IN it.
I like the way Joey rolls.
Also, good photo choice! 🙂
Hahaha..thank you!
I am still laughing at his critique of animal farm. I kid that smart would just ‘know’ if the chocolate was tampered with or not….right?
Well, it worked this time. haha
But, you know, it’s hard to convince them when they—luckily—turn out to be right and escape from the experience unscathed! Kids are such an adventure unto themselves! HAHA!
Yes…yes they are.
Hahaha! Reminds me of the time The Boy called me up from his college job at a restaurant and told me he had discovered something to soothe his sore throat. “I heated up some iced tea.” Me: What? That’s called tea. Boy: Oh. Yeah.
HAHHAHA…that made me snort
So funny! I was waiting for some big genius science experiment he conducted to rule out poison but in the end it was all about a boy and his stomach!
HAHHA..yeah…he just took the direct approach.
Ha, brilliant, still it was chocolate, I probably would have been tempted
🙂
P.S if you’re a potential murderer with an evil plan to try and kill me, no, no I absolutely wouldn’t have picked up the box and eaten it… probably
HAHA..I am reasonably sure I wouldn’t have. Nearly positive
My friend Jack: “Wait! Don’t drink that! It might be drugged! Here, let me…*glug glug glug* Ah, twas… So refreshing!”
Chocolate abandoned by a dumpster? Sounds like someone had a fight with their girlfriend at a really awkward time…
Yeah, or someone accidentally dropped it. Which is unfathomable to me..because chocolate.
Speaking as a “book smart” person, we often have precious little common sense. I scored in the top 5-10% of every standardized exam I’ve ever taken and I still have to check my hands to see which one’s thumb and forefinger make the L to remember my left from my right sometimes.
I have to check my wedding ring to tell them apart. I have no concept of right and left..
Hey, chocolate is chocolate! Lol! I once ate an apple that I found on the side of the road. It looked perfectly good and I can tell you that it wasn’t poisoned, because three years later, I am still alive!
Hahaha…that is good!
“Me: You are going to have to explained to me how you checked.
Joey: I ate a few more pieces. ”
First? Gwahahahahahaha!
Second? …..Yeah.
I’ve done similarly stupid things and for far less than chocolate.
Still. Is there a time when we, as parents, get to NOT have to say things like “don’t lick the table!”, “don’t eat the dumpster candy!”, “no really….just, don’t.”
#rhetoricalquestion #NOPE
HAHAHAHAH
SO…the husband and I are at the new Ripley’s aquarium in Toronto last year. Kids are grown but we’re always going to be museum-y type of people- except now we can actually look at things instead of getting dragged from room to room. Anyway- We’re standing in an area where there’s an interactive display. You have to stand on stuff to make it go up and down. My husband looks down and says “Hey would you look at that”. I turn to see him bend over to pick up a bite sized chocolate bar. You know the kind they call fun sized but really any kind of food that small is no fun at all. He says “It’s still sealed”. I respond with “Oh yeah” (head voice-that’s interesting whoopee). I look back down the corridor as I then say, “well I think there’s a garbage over…”. I smell chocolate. I turn back to see my 47 year old husband-who has a full time job- and can afford to buy full sized chocolate bars (as a matter of fact there was a little food kiosk in the building so he wouldn’t have had to go far)-has just finished eating this piece of random chocolate he found on the ground. FORTY SEVEN YEARS OLD and he’s eating ground candy. I guess I kind of made a noise when I looked at him because he said “What? I squeezed it and there was still air in the package”. I just shook my head. What am I going to say? I married a man who thinks it’s okay to eat ground candy- so I guess that’s on me.
HAHAHAAHAH…Ground candy! That is awesome!! OMG..your husband and my son would get along.
THAT is a great story.
A dumpster is fine, now eating food found on a bus that’s fucking stupid.
Hahah..I will pass that information along to the boy.
OMG I thought for a moment you were being facetious on Twitter when you said “hilarious”!
He’ll be fine… what’s a little plastic-wrapped chocolate baking in the sun by a dumpster?
Good point. I’m sure we’ve all unknowingly eaten much worse.
Yes. I enjoyed it. Fuckin’ love it in fact.
“Yeah, it was still wrapped in cellophane, so we took it inside and put it in the walk in freezer.’
Been there…
Hahaha…I am glad he isn’t alone. He was kind of pissed at me for posting this. I’ll let him know he has brothers on his side. Or I won’t bring it up at all. Just in case.
Someday, I’ll have to tell you about my adventures in dumpster diving. I wish I could say I was just young and foolish — but I was in my 30’s, with kids (that sometimes came with me). But in my defense, I found a ton of cool stuff.
Despite my background, I would have also been a bit freaked out by the dumpster chocolate — but only because it probably would have been all melty and messy 🙂