Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Intentions

We are planning a move to Redding—20 minutes from here. Local taxes went up $800/month, and I’m tired of the expense. The kids don’t want to move—they like their school, they love their friends. They fear we are poor—they ask me and I tell them we are not. But I don’t know how to explain why I am forcing a move without explaining that this town we’re in is too pricey, and we can live easier elsewhere. I have, I’m sure, handled this all wrong. But there you go.

***
They fought like cats and dogs all day yesterday—stuck in the house with a snow day, Liam with his cast, and Maisie out of some twisted solidarity or sheer disinterest in playing outside alone. They pulled an 8-foot bookcase away from the wall so that they could climb into a small closet behind it—a bookcase packed with stories I love that would’ve killed them if they’d only miscalculated a bit. They pondered the things they might do to get into the Guinness Book of World Records, and Liam determined that he could claim two things: 1) an enormous collection of elephant figurines; 2) his ability to stick a needle in his thumb 32 times.

“Wait—what??”—my head snaps up, and I’m waiting.

He holds up his thumb. Maisie brings me her phone with this photo, which captures another of the activities I missed when I went to work. They are gleeful. I feel bile in the back of my throat, and my eyes burn. I start to holler. Their faces fall. He begins to cry. I keep hollering. I talk about tetanus shots and infection. I’m so angry—with him, with her, with the adults next door who were supposed to be watching them.

When I stop hollering, he explains himself.

“I don’t want to move. Maisie and I were trying to think what we could do to make some money and save our house.” At “save our house” he’s holding up both hands for emphasis, because he feels such urgency. “So I thought if I sent this photo to Guinness Book of World Records they’d send me some prize money and we wouldn’t have to move.”

32 needles in his finger to save our house.

There are no words.

5 comments:

Grumpy Old Man said...

Absolutely fascinating, if someone else's kid does it.

If I didn't know better, I'd say it was some kind of Hindu ascetic atavism.

Never a dull moment. You can't take it with you.

sttropezbutler said...

Bisous.

STB

alan said...

Had that been me the ensuing panic would have looked like an Atlas 5 being launched...they're lucky you only yelled!

I was going to go eat breakfast after I got here, but think I'll be waiting a bit now!

alan

Anonymous said...

is a beutifull image is sorprendet

usual-daily-life said...

I was surprised.

...my blog:
http://usual-daily-life-and-a-photograph.blogspot.com/