I’m helping my mom organize her house. It’s been a long time coming, and with my husband’s retirement I feel freer be away from home a couple days a week until it’s finished. After I put dinner in the crockpot, that is.
Anyway, organization requires cleaning out, purging, getting rid of things. My mom unearthed a few rare treasures this past week. One of which my daughter was ecstatic to see. I’m not going to mention which daughter to protect the innocent and because she knows who she is. We had squirreled away a certain object at my mother’s house because, well, there are some things better hidden away rather than explain the social ramifications to a child.
When this particular child was in first grade, she decided to make her teacher a trophy out of fimo polymer clay. It was a solid structure, purple, about four inches high, and shaped kind of like a smooth, curvy, golden globe trophy, with just the globe. I was proud of her for wanting to honor her teacher in such a way, but the trophy was too thick to bake in the oven without it exploding, so I set it on the window sill to dry for awhile.
I didn’t think anything of it. In fact it may have become a part of the décor had I not had my bunco group to my house a few weeks later. Bunco is a parlor game of dice rolling, requiring no skill or concentration. It was a perfect, monthly escape for a group of mothers. Four of us were sitting at the table by the window, rolling dice with the concentration of toddlers while we chatted. One of the women glanced out the window, then asked why I displayed male genitalia on my window sill. I had honestly never considered that trophy’s imprudent shape until that moment.
Of course the discovery caused raucous laughter and endangered our ability to finish the game. It was the hilarious subject of conversation for the rest of the evening, a sense of dread washed over me. How was I going to tell my six year old that she couldn’t possibly give that trophy to her teacher? Of course, teachers are tough people and I’m sure she would have on a delighted face upon receipt of such a gift. The shame would have been mine and mine alone had someone not pointed out its inappropriate condition. Although I dodged one bullet, I still had to figure out how to talk my daughter out of gifting it.
I told my mother, and she hatched a plan. She would take the trophy and tell my daughter it needed to be in a safer place at her house while it dried. Then my daughter would most likely forget about it. The plan worked perfectly and the years rolled on.
When my daughter came of age several years ago, the story of the trophy came to light. She was, of course, mortified, but curious all the same. I never actively sought out the trophy to show her, but when it appeared last week, I chuckled at the idea of my daughter seeing it with her adult eyes. She had a couple friends over getting ready for Comicon when I announced its arrival. She screamed in the way when you find something that’s gross and your kid says, “Ewww! Can I see?”
It was in a nice rectangular box, she pulled the lid off and revealed the trophy in all its glory. She exclaimed to her friends “Remember the trophy? It’s here!” Her phone came out. Instagram will never be the same. An innocent child shall lead us, indeed.
Gretchen Leigh is a stay-at-home mom who lives in Covington. You can read more of her writing on her website livingwithgleigh.com, on Facebook at “Living with Gleigh by Gretchen Leigh,” or twitter @livewithgleigh. Her column is available every week at maplevalleyreporter.com under the Life section.
