Jack is our neighbor.  Jack is one of Lucas’ best friends’ little brothers.  And Jack is Lucas from about 10 years back.  Jack is bright as bright can be, but he’s fearless and he doesn’t have much in the way of common sense.  The only reason I feel like I can tell this story is because I lived this story with Lucas.  The similarities between the two kids is staggering.  When Lucas was two one of my friends said to me “Lucas is so lucky he’s your kid.  My husband would kill him.”  So when I see Jack, I remember Lucas so many years ago.

Here’s the story…

The other night we had some of our neighbors over to share a little of “God’s work.”  That’s what our priest calls fellowship between friends…when we gather together we are doing God’s work.  The men were outside watching football and drinking beer.  My girlfriend and I were in the kitchen chatting as I was getting the rest of dinner together.  The kids were inside, outside and all around.  Between us, we had six of our own kiddos running around and another neighbor’s child thrown into the mix, just for good measure, plus a boyfriend.  Yep, we did our share in the Catholic world.

The youngest of the kids (Jack and the other neighbor’s child who is Jack’s partner in crime, Russell were the two youngest here) were being good and keeping themselves entertained.  Jack and Russell are about the same age and were making good use of our craft/game cabinet.  They had Whack-a-Mole out.  They dragged out Uno.  They brought out the Funfusion bucket…a container full of little beads the kids put on these disks, creating designs that then get melted together with an iron…which are a part of Claire’s vast collection of crafty stuff.  In the Funfusion bucket I added ziplocks full of beads and little gems for any type of craft project  that may present itself.  I didn’t think too much about the boys being in the bucket-o-beads, like I said…they were entertained.

After a little while Jack appears in the kitchen with his upper body fully bedazzled with the gems from said bucket-o-beads.  And I mean his body, not his shirt.  And I think to myself…Oooooo-KAY!  WOW is he ever mighty sparkly…mmm, mmm, mmm!  What do you say to a boy who appears in your kitchen decked out in shiney gems that are adhered to his body??  Pretty?  Shiny?  Sparkly?  Awesome??  I wasn’t sure so…

I let it go but inside I was cracking up.

Dinner was done early (it was a school night) and it was time to call it a night.  The boys were called in to clean up their mess (aka the beads and games) in the living room as I cleaned the kitchen.  I wasn’t really focused on the mess in the living room, figuring it would sort itself out and I had other things to work on, like helping get the kids organized for Monday morning and an early alarm clock.

When I got up yesterday morning and walked into the living room, I found myself standing on a carpet full of Funfusion beads.  Bella was having a ball with them…finding them, chewing them and then requiring me to dig them out of her mouth so I could prevent another shizzard (that’s all I needed were bits and pieces of plastic worming their way through her delicate digestive system).  I got busy picking up the beads and that’s when I noticed the can of Elmer’s Spray Adhesive sitting on one of the living room side tables.  All the sudden the light went on and I realized that’s how Jack bedazzled himself.  Spray adhesive.  HOLY SHIT!  Thank God he didn’t try to melt the Funfusion beads onto himself as well.

I called my girlfriend to see how getting the spray adhesive off of Jack worked.  I don’t know how it didn’t dawn on any of us the night before how the hell Jack could have bedazzled himself, I told her.  There was no evidence of spray adhesive being used ~ like fumes.  I didn’t smell fumes.  Neither did she, she said.  The guys didn’t smell it.  The other kids didn’t smell it.  Somehow none of us had the wherewithal to ask Jack how he bedazzled himself when he appeared in the kitchen.  My girlfriend said when she asked him about it at home that he told her he was dared to spray himself with the adhesive (not by any of my kids, thank God!).  He went on to say that he saw the word “ELMERS” on the can and thought it would be safe to use.  That one word, Elmer’s, made it seem safe and Jack never thought a thing about it as he sprayed his body with glue.  I have to tell you, it sprays on like a dream but getting it off is a bitch, as Jack soon found out.

Jack went to school yesterday covered in little pills of glue.  My girlfriend asked me how I thought she should get it off.  We brainstormed a couple of ideas and she finally settled on trying baby oil.  She found out, the hard way, the night before that nail polish remover stings like crazy when it’s mixed with sprayed on glue.  I got a text from her last night saying “Just scrubbed Jack with baby oil mixed with sugar, he’s relatively adhesive free and soft as a baby’s behind!!!”  I told her I was cracking up laughing at the thought of Jack getting scrubbed down with baby oil and sugar.

She and I texted back and forth more and the conversation went like this…

Me ~ “What are you gonna do with the wild boys, except laugh?!”
GF ~ “I know and pray they figure it out at some point.”
Me ~ “Or star in their own version of “Jackass”
GF ~ “As long as it’s the version where they make a ton of money so they can support themselves with their idiocy.”
Me ~ “EXACTLY!!!  (and then they can support us in our “old age” because they are gonna be responsible for our early decline into the world of aging”
And she ended with “Amen, sister!!!!”

In times like these I can sit back and laugh, knowing it’s not my kid ~ this time.  This time, it was the story of Jack.  But I know I’ll have another story to tell about Jack’s older doppelganger (aka, Lucas) who believes it’s his destiny to keep the “Jackass” franchise alive and well.

Oh, for the love of my children….