The things we fear…

It’s a lazy Sunday afternoon. For a change, no chores, no places to visit, no distractions. The perfect time to crack open a book and just relax and read.

Piercing my blissful mood, I hear an adrenaline spiked yell from downstairs:

“Ack! There is a GINORMOUS spider down here! Oh, my God! It’s heading toward me!! Ahhhhhhhh!”

(This from my younger son, who, by the way, is built like an 185 pound side of beef – a side of beef from a cow that has won a gold medal in a bovine Olympic weightlifting competiton.)

My son sprints up the wooden stairs and intercepts his older brother in the hallway yelling: “I caught it. I caught it in a plastic cup. Look at the size of this sucker!”

A moment of silence and then I hear my older son exclaim: “Holy crap! Holy crap! Holy crap!” (I know, his college level eloquence can be stunning at times.)

Next, I hear the two of them jumping up and down in unison and squealing like a couple of 11 year old girls at their first Justin Bieber concert.

Then from the older son: “We gotta flush it!”

“Yeah” says his brother in a breathless tone that conveys that this is one of mankind’s greatest thoughts on par with Aristotle’s logic and the invention of screw top wine.

There are loud shuffling noises as I hear these two strapping young men crowd into our small guest bathroom. Then loud chants of “flush it, flush it flush it” like a group of crazed villagers from the Salem witch trials.

The toilet flushes. The water goes down the drain.

And, then, wait for it…wait for it….

“Oh, crap. The plastic cup is stuck in the toilet.”

“You dork, you weren’t supposed to flush the cup.”

“Quick go get some tools to get it out before the toilet backs up.”

And, at about this point I quietly take my book and walk outside, stopping along the way for a cold Lagunitas.