Stubborn Toe

I hear my old­est com­ing around the corner.

“Oww, Oww!!”

I look up & see him hob­bling. He stops and rubs his foot.

“What hap­pened? Are you Ok?”

I assume his answer will be some­thing all the lines of: “I was just run­ning after my brother to take some­thing from him & right before I tack­led him I got hurt. It is all G’s fault for not let­ting me tackle him!” because really many injuries seem to be self-inflicted but it is eas­ier to blame our broth­ers, sis­ters, or the way the plan­ets are aligned. And follow-up answer on whether he is OK would be along the lines of: “No, I’m not Ok. I AM DYING!!!”

Instead he looks at me, dead in the eyes, with a level of seri­ous­ness far to advanced for a boy his age and says

“I have a stub­born toe. You know how these stub­born toes feel, hurts like the dickens!”

First, I don’t even know how to respond to him using the phrase “hurts like the dick­ens” where did he get that from?

Sec­ond, “stub­born toe” Hus­ton I think we have a com­mu­ni­ca­tion problem.

“Um, stub­born toe? I’m not sure what that means.”

“You know, I was walk­ing and bumped it. Now I got a stub­born toe!”

Ahh…he stubbed his toe.

“You mean you stubbed your toe.”

“Yah, that’s what I said. I got a stub­born toe.”

Then he stops. Eyes get­ting big­ger, hand raises to tap his fore­head and says:

“Oh man! I mean stubbed. I stubbed my toe. Except my toe is refus­ing to not hurt. So that is pretty stub­born. It really is a stub­born toe!”

Fol­lowed by his howls of laugh­ter and yes a knee slap. He was so amused he slapped his own.

And the puns begin.

Tagged as: family, humor, kids, mr. j