What NOT to do with gum

Dee from OnTheCurb left a comment on my Have You Ever post which has triggered a notion to find a way to share one of the funnier stories from my life. And one that illustrates that my instincts are similar to Dee’s as per her comment:

Oh geez, I’m HORRIBLE when people trip and fall and am no help whatsoever. Just your description of DS1 flipping over the shopping cart railing has me rolling. Memories, huh?!

Some people know this story and know the people involved. I am sure you will follow my line of concealing those identities, ok? Let’s just say that this story involves me, a friend, and a boy. Perhaps I was babysitting. Yeah, we’ll go with that.

So my friend and I are watching tv. The boy was taking a bath. He must have been about 7. I had run the bath and made sure it was the right temp and then left him as he was rather independent about those things. Apparently there was also some bubble gum in his room.

bubble gum that he decided to chew

All ok so far right? Well…after blowing one of those bubbles, apparently there was a desire to place the bubble somewhere. Now, where would a naked 7 year old boy put a blown bubble? ” Hmmm….well….oh, look at this dangling here between my legs..perhaps…oh, cool! Now it’s like there is a pink condom on there!” (Ok, he was 7 so I am sure he didn’t make that connection but trust me, that’s what I thought when I saw it. But I am jumping ahead)

So now the boy has this pink rubber. Which is really quite sticky. So sticky that, well, um…it..wont..come..off!! In fact, OW, it just pulls the skin, but wont budge! Panic sets in. He does NOT want to ask for help (did I mention that independent streak?). So he thinks maybe it is because his skin is slippery and wet from the bath so perhaps he sould use something else to..er..rub the gum off? Now, perhaps one would think that the towel would have jumped to his mind, but he IS just 7. Towels are too obvious. Hey, what about the carpet? it’s rough, it would grip and pull the gum off, right? YES! Brilliant! Let’s try that! Just lay down here on your stomach and press the..err..pink covered dangly bit against and drag yourself along and…OWOWOWOWOWOW!!!

Now the sounds of the struggle are drifting out to the living room. I’m curious so I turn down the sound on the tv and am about to go in to check when I hear a rather shakey voice call out for help. Uh oh. I didn’t hear him fall? What could it be?

I walk into the room and see the boy, still naked, doing what looks like a push up on the floor. Only, there is another part of his body still sticking to the carpet, kinda like this:

What do I do? Well, I told you that Dee’s comment struck me as very very familiar. Yep. I busted out laughing. Hard. And loud. My friend came running. Then he was laughing. Hard. The boy? Oh, he was NOT laughing. He was kind of whimper crying mostly just because he was scared I think. And of course the adults around him were a BIG help weren’t they?  I think I actually had to walk out of the room at one point because I couldn’t breathe from laughing at just the sight of it. Well. Not very empathatic or helpful at ALL. To this day I do not remember how we rescued him. But we did. Really. He’s fine now. Well, physically anyway. Somehow I don’t think that even time passing has eased his psyche at being the subject of one of THE funniest memories from my life 🙂