The Wisdom of Rufus's Friends, Those Dirt Balls and Dust Bunnies

Three or four times a year, I like to go eat lunch at the germ factory, otherwise known as our outstanding elementary facility. It's a good habit to have, allowing me to annoy the principal with my petty gripes, to sample the caf-I-tear-ya cuisine, to force a horrified Boudreaux into kissing his mama on the cheek in front of all his buddies, and to get some playground rocks in my shoe all at the same time, while effectively unsettling all the teachers: "what IS she doing here? what kind of trouble is THAT parent causing?" So Goozie got gussied up in a loverly little pink cordouroy number with matchin' bloomers, christened the outfit with a few tablespoons of barf, and joined me in the Big Mama Bus, which we took up to la escuela. I accomplished three of my four goals at set forth above (annoying, sampling, kissing) and then set out for some play ground adventures. These sorts of visits were very successful in getting to know Boudreaux's friends. So now we have to start over with Rufus.

Recess is an amazing thing. Lots of the classic game chase-the-boys, chase-the-girls goes on in kindergarten. I'm proud, in fact, to announce that I procured the infectious disease chicken pox by chasing, catching, and kissing a boy at Aunt Pattie's kiddie corral. When the weather is dry, all this chasing kicks up a huge dust cloud. It's like Pigpen from Charlie Brown, only with a dust devil of short little legs running around inside the cloud of brown dirt.

After trekking through the cloud of chaos and before I even sat down on the bench, I was surrounded by a mob of precious, sweet, jumping, screaming children, all sticking their fingers up Goozie's nose and into her eyes and tugging on her feet and asking the important questions "Is that uh girrul er a bow-ey? Does it pee a lot? Can I pet it?"

Once I sat down, talk turned strangely enough to injuries and ailments. Was I at an elementary school or a nursing home? About 8 of them surrounded me all talking at once. Here's what was swirling around me, as Rufus sat, overwhelmed at my side, quiet, for one of the first times in his life (!). And yes, these are reasonably accurate quotations. I didn't make this up:

"I got a skinned knee. Wanna see my scab?"

"Well, I got the tip of my finger caught in a door and cut off! Look at whar my fangernail use ta be!"

"Look here at my ear! My Mom gets stuff out of it that's ORANGE!"

"Once I got poked in the eye with a stick and had to get stitches."

"Oh yea? Well I live with my granny, cause my Dad died and my Mom did something real, real bad. And I have a mosquito bite right here! On mah foot! See it?"

"Once, I cut my hand with a piece of broken glass!"

"I got stung by a bee on my leg! See the scar down here? Hey Lady Mommy Person! Look down here at mah le-egg!"

And in the chaotic whirlwind of this biohazzardous report, one statement made me interupt the symphony and reply.

Precious Dusty Girlchild: "Hey! I got bit by a bull ant once...and it REALLY hurt!"

Fatty, with rocks in shoes and dust up nose: "A bull ant? How did you know it was a bull ant?"

PDG: "Cause it was BIG!"

F w/rocks: "How big?"

PDG: "Well, bigger than a cow ant anyways. Boys are always bigger than the girls."

I left recess thinking she was full of you-know-what...but then I did my research! I'm not sure if the child has visited Australia or New Caledonia lately...but she was on to something... The top picture is a bull ant, and the bottom picture is a cow ant. Who knew?!?