Time To Say Good-bye...Crying...

          She had a shower and was heading upstairs to get her jammies.
      Daddy: "All shiny and clean like a baby's bum?"
      Isobel : "Like what?"
      Daddy: "Skip it. Going to get your warm jammies on?"
      Isobel:  "Yep."
      Daddy: "Well, safe travels then."
      Isobel: "What?"
      Daddy: Never mind."
      Isobel: (Coming downstairs) "Daddy?"
      Daddy: "Yep?"
      Isobel: "Notice anything?"
      Daddy: "No...well, you are walking like a cowboy...you lost your horse, that's it?"
      Isobel: "Daddy."
      Daddy: "Not that huh?"
     Isobel: "Do you know why I am walking like this?"
     Daddy: "Not the horse?"
     Isobel: "Nope."
     Daddy: "OK Pick, I give up. Why are you walking like a cowboy?"
     Isobel: "I'm still sticky."



       I am a pack rat. I come from a long line of pack rats. I suspect it has something to do with thievery somewhere in my family's past but I'm just guessing on that. It wouldn't surprise me though. Filthy, sneaky buggers that we are. There's that wandering away that they warned me about. OK, back in session...pack rats...right... I am one and so is my progeny.
      Izzy made me an Easter egg at school ( I want you to remember that I said Easter) it was about a foot long and decorated with many colours and stripes. It was made with love or at least a sense of holiday obligation and she chose to give it to me. It sat beside the sink in the kitchen for a couple of days and got splashed. That's when I noticed that the Easter egg became sticky.
      "Isobel?" I inquired of my thoughtful child.
       "What?" she came bounding down the stairs as though the speed at which she got to the bottom might get her some kind of reward.
        "What is this Easter egg made of?"
       She answered slowly but with a tone that said she thought I was the most stupid man she had ever known. "...Paper?"
      "No, no." I said trying to prove that I wasn't the most stupid man she had ever known. "What is on it that is making it sticky?"
      "Oh," she said and I swear I hear an 'you old fool' in there somewhere. "We put real cake icing on it and then sprayed it with sugar and water to make it sparkle."
     Ingenious and inventive and very popular with the cats. Now as I mentioned I am a pack rat and a parent of six years. To that end, I am never certain what of my children's master pieces I should keep and for how long? Is there a best before date on school projects? I know the really big ones I should keep for as long as possible (my mother still has a clay turtle that looks as though it had a stroke made by my brother. I believe it was a Mother's day gift for her. In October my brother will turn 49.)
    Anything that I can't immediately make a joke about or something that, dare I say makes me a little misty, is going to go the distance if humanly possible. But where in all of that do sticky Easter cards and drawings of mittens and pictures of damn fine duckies fall? So the icky sticky Easter egg was tucked away with the full intention of being disposed at an opportune time. I would look at the shelf in my room and see it there, the icky sticky Easter egg and it would mock me. It would laugh and in my head I would hear it tell me that it would be there till the house fell or I did and it didn't care which came first. Such are the trials of the pack rat.
      It is the last week of August and I (for whatever earthly reason) looked at my shelf today and noticed the icky sticky Easter egg. It was now the crunchy crusty Easter egg and into the trash can it duly went.
      Now there's a good bet that a pack rat will tend to produce another pack rat, there are few examples of it being a recessive trait. At least in my family. Isobel is NOT an exception.
      "Daddy, why is your picture in the trash?" she asked.
      "It's old and dried out, honey." I fumbled.
      "Oh," she said. "OK."
     I figured that was the end of it.
      "Isobel?" I asked her. "Why is your tongue blue?"
      "It isn't." she said.
      "Are you licking the Easter egg?"
      "No!" she said. The utterly aghast tone and indignation in her voice told me that she was of course licking the crunchy crusty Easter egg. I'm certain it was well on its way to being icky and sticky again. About an hour later, she had completely given in to thew bunny on her back and came down the stairs taking big long licks off the icky sticky Easter egg.
     "Oh god," I said. "Are you nuts?"
      "What?" she said.
      "You're licking that Easter egg."
      "I can't help it Daddy," she pleaded. "It's just so good."
     She took a giant lick of it like it was an all day sucker. It wasn't, it was an icky sticky Easter egg that had sat on my dusty bedroom shelf since April. It is August.
      "It is August, Isobel. That thing has been sitting on my shelf collecting dust since April. You're not going to think t is so good when you are throwing up tonight or shitting yourself blind tomorrow morning."
      While I was fairly certain she wouldn't get the slightest symptom from the icky sticky crunchy crusty Easter egg, I wanted her to understand that we don't eat old food. (All you beer and whisky and cheese people zip it)
      "Isobel," I said. "Sometimes we have to let go of the things that we really like. Especially when they get old and could potentially poison us. It's not a lot of fun but that's just the way it is. As you get older, you'll see I'm right." I was proud of myself for not freaking out and still managing to sound Fathery at the end of it all.
       "That sounds made up." she said.

       I was sitting downstairs when I heard a terrible sound coming from her room. I thought it was a terrible sound. It sounded awful, as though she were up there wailing over some terrible wrong that had just been inflicted on her. Or some great pain she was being made to endure. It is not a sound a parent wants to hear come out of their child. Ever. I raced upstairs to get to her. What could possibly have happened in the few minutes since she had been up there? I tried not to think of the worst. My brain switched into high gear, trying to think of all the things that were upstairs that she could have injured herself with.
     I got to the top of the stairs and bolted to her room...
         She was sitting on her bed, with headphones on and singing into the auto tune singing machine we got her for Christmas. Wailing away without a care in the world...
     "What?" she asked.
      "I thought you were crying," I said. "I was worried.
     "No, I'm OK." she said. "But my singing was so good, I FELT like crying."