The Green Thing

“Are you sure you don’t mind watching the kids?” I asked a bleary-eyed Hubs last night after dinner.

“You have to go write,” he answered dully. “This is the only night this week we can do this. Go.” He waved his hand weakly in the air. “Go.”

I ran upstairs, brushed my hair, and put on some lip-gloss. When I came back down to the kitchen, Bruiser was rooting through our food pantry … the food pantry that was supposed to be off-limits to one-year-olds, particularly one-year-olds who put every single stinking thing they find on the ground into their mouths.

“Bruiser!” I said sharply from the other side of the kitchen gate. “Get out of there!” He looked at me and grinned a bright green grin. “What the hell?!” I said. “Hubs? What has he been eating?!”

“Huh?” he asked. I climbed over the gate and grabbed Bruiser, quickly running a well-practiced finger through his mouth. Along with his lips, his tongue and teeth were also bright green. And his mouth was empty.

“He’s eaten it!” I said. “Whatever it is, he’s eaten it. I can’t believe this!” I muttered, standing. “I leave him with you for one minute … ”

“Look, I’ve been watching him,” Hubs said. “Whatever he ate, it happened while we were all in here eating dinner.”

“Oh no,” I laughed incredulously. “Uh uh. Because I was watching him while we ate dinner and I would have noticed if he’d put something in his mouth.” I sniffed Bruiser’s face. “Well, it doesn’t smell like Pine-Sol,” I announced. “So I guess we can rule that out.” Hubs and I shuffled around our kitchen and hunted through the pantry, looking for stray green … things. I held up a plastic tree left over from Punky’s birthday cake.

“These!” I said. “The dye comes right off them when they get wet!”