Sticky with filth, the sequel
The boy broke is wrist Friday, which further muddies an already sketchy hygiene regimen.
Fourteen hours removed from his last hot-water rinse in the shower (actually, he is using some soap these days) and eight hours removed from a sweaty game of basketball (where the injury occurred), we’re in the emergency room getting a splint wrapped onto his left hand.
“Don’t get this wet,” the ortho tech warned, “’cause it’ll just come apart.”
He smelled (which made him fit right in at the E.R. at 8 p.m. on a Friday). He needed as soak.
Trouble was, the boy went over to his father’s for the weekend. By the time we got him back at 8 p.m. Sunday night, he was humming.
You could actually see the waves of stink coming off him, like heat rising from summer blacktop.
“He’s got to take a bath, or a shower,” my wife said, wrinkling her nose. “Anything.
“And the next time I go to the dry cleaner, I’m taking that hat in. It reeks.”
I looked at her, dumbfounded.
“Yeah, his beanie is dry-clean only,” she said. “Go figure.”
The boy wears one of those stylish beanies with the little bills. And it’s dry-clean only. Like this is a good fashion option for 14-year-old boys.
Amazing.
(I think it would be cheaper just to burn it, and buy a new one, but no one is asking my opinion.)
But I do get put on bath duty. Nothing beats duct tape and a plastic garbage sack for waterproofness.
“That’s going to take the hair on my arm off,” the boy realizes.
“Yep, and it’s probably going to hurt,” I said. “Just pull it off fast.”
It’s now Tuesday and he’ll have gone another 48 hours without showering.
“We’ve got to do something,” my wife said this morning.
The gel in his hair just....keeps....building.....a......life......of.......its.......own.
“He’ll have to shower at night, with supervision,” she said. “That cast can’t get wet.”
He’s in the thing for three weeks; I leave for Italy in two.
I feel a catastrophic failure, or just plain wretched stench, will doom the cast way before I get on the plane.
Luckily for us, the nurse said she’d recast it, if there were “issues.”
“You just have to ask, really, really nice.”
It’s an ass-kissing of major proportions - we’re already preparing for.
Fourteen hours removed from his last hot-water rinse in the shower (actually, he is using some soap these days) and eight hours removed from a sweaty game of basketball (where the injury occurred), we’re in the emergency room getting a splint wrapped onto his left hand.
“Don’t get this wet,” the ortho tech warned, “’cause it’ll just come apart.”
He smelled (which made him fit right in at the E.R. at 8 p.m. on a Friday). He needed as soak.
Trouble was, the boy went over to his father’s for the weekend. By the time we got him back at 8 p.m. Sunday night, he was humming.
You could actually see the waves of stink coming off him, like heat rising from summer blacktop.
“He’s got to take a bath, or a shower,” my wife said, wrinkling her nose. “Anything.
“And the next time I go to the dry cleaner, I’m taking that hat in. It reeks.”
I looked at her, dumbfounded.
“Yeah, his beanie is dry-clean only,” she said. “Go figure.”
The boy wears one of those stylish beanies with the little bills. And it’s dry-clean only. Like this is a good fashion option for 14-year-old boys.
Amazing.
(I think it would be cheaper just to burn it, and buy a new one, but no one is asking my opinion.)
But I do get put on bath duty. Nothing beats duct tape and a plastic garbage sack for waterproofness.
“That’s going to take the hair on my arm off,” the boy realizes.
“Yep, and it’s probably going to hurt,” I said. “Just pull it off fast.”
It’s now Tuesday and he’ll have gone another 48 hours without showering.
“We’ve got to do something,” my wife said this morning.
The gel in his hair just....keeps....building.....a......life......of.......its.......own.
“He’ll have to shower at night, with supervision,” she said. “That cast can’t get wet.”
He’s in the thing for three weeks; I leave for Italy in two.
I feel a catastrophic failure, or just plain wretched stench, will doom the cast way before I get on the plane.
Luckily for us, the nurse said she’d recast it, if there were “issues.”
“You just have to ask, really, really nice.”
It’s an ass-kissing of major proportions - we’re already preparing for.
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