My son came running into my room last night complaining that he'd lost all feeling in his butt. This didn't come as a huge surprise, although it did make me wonder what he'd done this time.
After all, this is the boy who stuck his hand into a blender, the one who thinks having his appendages turn purple is a badge of boyhood honor, and who has peed on his cousins from the top of a tall cedar tree.
Not much surprises me about his antics any more. At this particular time he was shivering and shaking, so I told him to take a hot shower.
He emerged an hour later, after emptying the hot water tank, to tell me this story.
Seems the Christmas party he and his pals went to the other night wasn't as much fun as they'd thought it would be, so naturally they cast about looking for something more in line with their prepubescent party-going personas.
What they came up with was the enormous construction site across the street. This had the allure of being away from the adults, in the dark, and the added exciting element of trespassing on private property. How could they resist?
Plus it was his pal Jonathon's idea to go over there. This is the same kid that Chris had a running BB gun fight with last summer. That should have been the first clue that things weren't going to go well.
This construction site is to be the home for, well, homes. Probably about 50 of them from what I can tell. So far it's just a big pile of dirt, mud, puddles and outdoor potties. The puddles weren't puddles last night - they were frozen semisolid, and a few were a foot or more deep. This is where the fun comes into play.
Sliding commenced and all went well until Bentley broke through the ice and had the unfortunate luck of falling through the ice next to a Port-a-Potty that was leaking. The frozen puddle wasn't exactly water. With an enormous WHOOSH, the puddle gave up its filthy contents, and poor Bentley was down in the stinky stuff.
Bringing their naturally supportive natures to the surface, Sean, Jonathon and Christopher gathered around their odoriferous pal and proceeded to offer him consolation in the form of falling all over each other in laughter.
You would think that after this unfortunate occurrence the boys would call it a night. You would be wrong. Who knows what delights all the other frozen puddles might have to offer? Plus, these are teenage boys we're talking about here - fearless and not just a little bit ignorant about what amount of their parents' yearly income goes to ER visits.
So they went back to sliding across 15-foot puddles whose depths were unknown, which just added to the thrill. One thing the boys forgot, or didn't care about, is the fact that this area they were playing in is rife with retention ponds. Retention ponds are not puddles, they are ponds. This means that the water is quite a bit deeper than just a few inches.
Guess who went in next? Yep, Numb Butt Boy. He fell in sideways after the ice split, and his head went under the water halfway. Being as it was about 22 degrees out, his hair began to freeze to his head, and his gluteus maximus started down the road to hypothermia. At this point it can be argued that he set his hormonal rise into puberty back by years. He better not have ruined my chances of becoming a grandmother.
This makes two boys out of four that have gone into the water. Do they stop? Pshaw! The night is young, and so is their sense of self-preservation! Slipping and sliding continued until it was time to go home.
By this time Numb Butt Boy has lost all feeling in his lower extremities, his hair is frozen to his head and he is nearly in need of medical intervention.
He and his posse finally went back to the Christmas party where he told his father what he'd done. Dad just shook his head. He told me later he thought our son's numb brain quirk had traveled down to his butt and lodged there.
It wouldn't surprise me in the least.[[In-content Ad]]
