Pittur Sho

How many of ya’ll have kids? How many of ya’ll like children? How many of ya’ll think that you are good with the chilins? And how many of ya’ll think that I really care about your answers?

That’s right, introductory questions are used as hooks to draw you into a topic. When asked a question people feel compelled to answer, so they suddenly have a stake in an article. I may not always agree with journalistic manipulation, but I’m more than willing to use their trade tools to my advantage. But let’s move on.

There are varying opinions on my ability to deal with children. I’ve actually got both extremes pretty well covered. I’ve had the “you should be a father” as an almost moral accusation. I’ve also been told, “you can’t ever have kids because you’d kill them.” I personally prefer the latter group because they never bug me about babysitting. You have to admit, that’s a pretty wide margin of opinions.

Well the other day I was dealing with a friends’ two-year old daughter. She was running around a store we were in, just horsing around as children are wont to do. Some people would say that she’s as cute as a button. I’d say she’s small, loud, repetitive, and still shits in her pants.

Regardless, I was wearing short pants, sandals, and a wrinkled buttoned up shirt, because that’s how I roll. For those in the know it’s never all that surprising when toddlers grab at you, bagging clothing making me a reachable target. For women it’s the necklaces and earrings, guys generally deal with facial hair pulls and shirt collars. And good Lord man, take off your tie!

There’s nothing all that interesting about the kids groping around your shins, if you haven’t noticed, they aren’t exactly nimble on their footsies. Once you stop worrying about stepping on them, you don’t really notice the pocket tugs and face plants. That is, until they stop running around and making noise. Children are at their most dangerous when they are still and silent. It’s the eye of the storm, or the mischief zone; a frightening time where your wits prick up and you start to pay attention to the potential sound of breaking bones.

I look back and this kid is pulling up the back of my right shorts pant leg. Don’t get too excited ladies; she’s two feet high so “up” is about knee level. She looks at me then back at my leg, back and forth, up and down. Flabbergasted is the only word that comes to mind to describe her face. She was remarkably confused.

She eventually asks in a near palateless voice, “what’s that?” I happen to have a very tasteful tattoo on that calf, so I told her it was a picture, which while an understatement is certainly true.

She pulls up the leg again for another inspection and asks, still surprised, “pitture!?!” Yup, it’s a picture. “Pitture?” Almost pleading for validation. Uh-huh, it’s a pretty picture, huh? “Pitture!” Excited at discovering a whole new world of pigmentation. You may be getting a glimpse at my repetitive comment from earlier. Never, ever, under any circumstances, fucking ever… say “mommy.” If you do, you’ll have a ten minute one word conversation in octave just shy of canine.

After a few more moments of incredulity she lost interest in my physiological adornments and started licking her reflection in a nearby mirror. It just goes to show that I’ll say anything to get a kid off my leg.