Birds, bees pale by comparison

Almost from the time their children are born, parents start sweating the day they will have to have the dreaded talk. THE TALK. The OHMIGOD, S/HE WANTS TO KNOW ABOUT THE BIRDS AND THE BEES talk.

I’ve got a news flash for you, Mom and Dad: I’d rather answer sex questions until my eyes bleed than to address some of the scenarios that have spewn forth from my darlings’ mouths. Here, I offer a sampling of things no parent ever wants to hear, especially over the telephone 30 miles miles from home.

“The light on the aquarium kept going out, so I kept turning up the temperature.”

Boiled neon tetras for dinner, anyone?

“You said don’t call unless it’s an emergency.” (Upon arriving home to find two inches of standing water in the dining and living rooms, after defining an emergency as “…if it’s bleeding, not breathing or on fire.” My bad.)

“Mrs. X next door thinks it needs stitches.”

When Mrs. X is a former M*A*S*H nurse and the queen of understatement, this may indicate an amputation.

“A tree fell on the house, and there’s a family of chipmunks hanging out on the kitchen table.” (Anyone who’s ever complained of a mouse or two has never had the pleasure of sharing their abode with a family of displaced chipmunks. To add insult to injury, Satan the Cat goes hunting and rescues and brings into the house, uninjured, several of their friends and members of their extended family.)

“Why is there spaghetti on the ceiling?” (Why IS there spaghetti on the ceiling, indeed? Incompetent sitter refused to let 4-year-old child eat until she could properly pronounce ‘spaghetti.’ Frustrated and hungry child threw plate. Straight up. Mom must have been heavily sedated after arriving home to discharge said sitter from her duties, as she has no recollection of how the cleaning task was accomplished.)

“This is the school. Your child is running a fever and vomiting. Please come get him/her immediately.” (You’re joking, right? I drop off a perfectly good child in the morning, and the school makes them ill. Everyone there is already exposed to the bubonic plague, so I think they should keep them. Besides, who wants to deal with that mess?)

“Did you hear about my accident?” (Nope. And I don’t want to hear about it now. In fact, maybe not ever.)

“Is it normal for a hamster to sleep on her back without moving all day?” (Yessirree, Bob. Right up to the time of the little rodent funeral.)

But my all-time favorite heart attack had to have been, “Don’t worry, Mom. I put the fire out.” (What’s to worry about? My boss peeled me off the ceiling.)

Reprinted courtesy Eagle Newspapers, Syracuse, New York.