Careful Dad, It Might Be Poisonous

It’s amazing how fast signals travel through these bodies God made for us. Although I didn’t start my stopwatch, I can assure you it was less than a quarter second between the time my foot pressed into the soft, unidentified mass curled up in the toe of my large rubber boots until the time my brain interpreted that touch and sent out code-red panic signals in every direction. Hearing the neurological siren, my eyes widened with fright, my heart beat suddenly broke into a full sprint, tiny beads of sweat sputtered from my pores, and most importantly, my leg involuntarily shot out of my boot faster than my mouth could spit out its first meaningless utterance, “Ah!” Like an overgrown flamingo, I stood on one foot, paralyzed for a second or two. I looked down at the boot, which stood upright, waiting to see what might crawl, slither or waddle out. As my mind’s adrenalin alarms subsided, rational thinking returned and, glancing over my shoulder, I informed Andrea and Micah in the calmest voice I could muster, “There’s something in my shoe.”

 

Our trip to lock up the chicken house this evening would necessarily be delayed while this varmint was properly disposed of. Andrea and Micah retrieved a flashlight which I poked into the top of the boot, hopeful of seeing a foot or a tail or something so as to have the advantage of first sight. Unfortunately, the little bugger must have gotten mighty cozy up in the toe, and no doubt squeezed in tighter when startled by my invading appendage, not to mention its mildly offensive fragrance on what would soon be “shower night.” So, with my unwillingness to stick any other valuable body parts into the boot, I knew we would have to play by his rules. Grabbing a long stick, which I intended to become the murder weapon, I let the boot fall down onto its side and waited…and waited. Nothing ran out. So, I carefully grabbed the sole of the boot and lifted it to create a gentle ramp down to the ground, tightening my grip on my trusty bludgeon. Finally, tipping the boot over completely and pressing its mouth into the sand, I banged on its sole to inform the little fellow that he had been discovered and that presence was no longer welcome. I felt no movement, heard no squeaks, hisses, or claws scrapping against the rubber in an effort to resist gravity’s pull down to earth. After a moment to collect my thoughts, I raised the mouth of the boot just enough to… “AHA! There it was” I said as I slammed the boot back down to the ground. I had, in fact, seen it, a tight, fuzzy ball, huddled in the shadows, no doubt scared half to death. Well, fully intending to help with the other half of that journey, I widened my stance, raised my blood-thirsty club and slowly lifted the boot again. There it was, still in the same place, still motionless, yet no doubt planning its mad dash for freedom. I continued to raise the boot…amazed at the little guy’s patience. But wait, as more and more light crept into the varmint’s hideout, something strange caught my eye – the color RED. Pausing for a split second, the tension in my lips melted into an uninhibited smile. “Oh brother,” I said to the audience looking intently over my shoulder, “Micah, I think you are to blame for this.” I lifted the boot completely to reveal a foam red ball with a slit down the middle – commonly indentified as a “dollar store clown nose.”

 

But in a world with mambas, cobras, scorpions, and rabies carrying rodents, I suppose one can’t be too careful. So I guess in the end, Micah got the last laugh. Maybe we can chalk it up to his first successful practical joke, and he was quite good at it too, watching the whole drama without cracking a smile.