My Son . . . the Smurf
© 2003- 2006 Carole Moore
Recently I became the parent of a Smurf. You remember Smurfs – the little blue cartoon creatures who were popular a few years back?
Normally my son looks like a regular kid – taller than the Smurfs, although his eyes are blue. The rest of him is pretty much people-colored. But the other night, he took a turn for the blue, in an incident that anyone who's ever parented a boy should understand.
He and his friends, including his best friend and co-conspirator in most crimes, Ryan, and our two neighbor children, Nick and Ben, were playing in my son's room. I'd put video games off-limits in the hopes of generating a little bit of old-fashioned amusement. You know – marbles or checkers or even a little ball game outside in the middle of our dead-end court. And that, unfortunately, is what I got, but not exactly how I envisioned it.
The story gets a bit fuzzy at this juncture. I know that my son and the other three boys were playing with this little round ball. It's not a baseball or basketball, though. Instead it "tells your fortune" by allowing the user to ask a question, turn it over and reveal the "answer" as if by magic. Never thought about what was in that ball. Never had the need to wonder.
Perhaps I should have.
The boys played nicely in my son's room, and were quiet – for boys. That should have been our first clue something was up. Four boys don't stay good and quiet unless they're up to something.
There's a bit of controversy as to who had the idea to play baseball with the mystical fortune-telling ball, but my mother's instinct (and many other similar incidents) tell me it was probably someone with whom I share DNA. But it seems someone tossed the blue ball at the baseball bat and the bat made a good, solid connection with the ball. The result: the ball broke and sprayed blue dye in an arc around my son's room.
There was blue dye on the carpet, walls, comforter, sheets, toys and books. In fact, it would be difficult to find anything that wasn't covered with blue dye. A bright "Smurf" shade of blue.
Naturally, the other boys kept their mouths shut when they went home, except for my son, who had to make an interesting choice – confess and throw himself on our mercy or pretend nothing was wrong. He decided to simply pretend nothing was wrong and hope we wouldn't notice. And it would have probably worked for a while except for one thing: He was blue. Smurf blue.
Well, I was pretty ticked. We had to toss his comforter in the trash and clean his carpets. Thanks heavens they were dark green – a deep enough color to hide the blue. His white sheets were pretty much a lost cause and we were able to get most of the stains off his other possessions, although his clothes were a mess.
I was tired and angry and ranting as he stood forlornly on the bottom of the stairs, listening to me go on and on about maturity, responsibility and consequences, when my husband let slip a snicker. I glared at him.
"You think this is funny, don't you?" I huffed.
He kind of tilted his head and grinned, then looked at my son.
I followed his gaze. My boy stood there on the staircase with a blue face, blue knees, blue feet and hands. In fact, he looked like a Picasso painting, only with his nose in the right place. I let slip a smile. What can I say?
It's hard to stay mad at someone who looks like a gigantic blueberry with legs.
