“None of the girls wants to get boy cooties,” my daughter said.
She was explaining why the girls were making the boys hold their sleeves instead of their hands when the boys in the 4th grade class and the girls in the same class performed a brief dance number as part of the class’s participation in the school Christmas show.
Their hands only touch briefly and for three, maybe four times, the teacher explained. Still, it had not stopped a fourth grade boy from writing a note to the teacher saying he didn’t want to participate because he could get girl cooties.
Christmas time is often about fixing things as well as getting or giving new things. And while some of the things being fixed aren’t trains or tricycles, doll houses or even decorations, they are still important to nine year olds.
Fortunately, I came upon a solution: gloves. They were already supposed wear scarfs as part of their costumes. What was more natural than gloves to go with the scarfs? I purchased six pairs of inexpensive bright pink gloves and proposed their use to the teacher. Each girl would wear a pair to practice and maybe even at the performance, insulating them from the dreaded “boy cooties.”
My daughter was immediately taken with the idea, and once the teacher approved, the problem was solved. Or, at least, I hope so. The performance is still a week away and who knows what viral debasement those young boys may yet let loose upon the world of girls. There mere existence is proof of an aberrant decline of fourth grade, if not all of humanity.
Unfortunately, the other challenge I’ve been asked to fix may not turn out as well.
I have taken a vow of silence — batteries not included.
I came home from work last night to find a stuffed dog in a striped winter scarf sitting on the sofa in the foyer. He held a note that read: “I need help please fix me!”
From what I can gather, his push button voice module was no longer working. How long had it been non function my daughter did not know. She possesses quite a collection of stuffed animals, ranging from finger puppet stuffed animals to a pink unicorn large enough to use as a pillow.
The dog could have recently gone mute. Or he could have taken a vow of silence many months back in protest to being ignored. The “you won’t speak to me, so I won’t speak to you either approach to communication.”
I have opened up the dog, inspected his battery cage, which appears to have a missing on/off switch, and I have followed the wires from the battery cage to what I believe is the voice module. It is inside a white sack sown snuggly around the module.
I have checked the batteries, tried jumping the connection to bypass the switch, and have even mostly freed the module from it sack in order to try to examine it.
It is a cramped space inside the bear and my fingers are not the type with tapered types. About as wide as they are long (from the base of the hand to the tip of the middle finger), they are more suited from tracing around to make hand turkeys than they are for operating in a confined, stuffed dog, chest cavity space.
I could slice the dog open, but I am not sure that would fix anything or make me any the wiser about the operation of the voice module.
I will take another look at the dog, but not tonight. He is still a viable stuffed dog, even if mute.
He may have to remain that way.
I guess I could always buy him a pair of gloves.
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