The devil and the lawman

Boys... you never know what they will do. Consider these examples:

4-year-old Joel tells us the other night as we were driving to church: "The devil lives underground." Then he proceeds to inform us all of our roles in his scheme to take out the devil. We were all going to take shovels and dig way down deep until we reached him. Then Noah would hit the devil with a shovel. My job was to "cannonball" him and then "toot in his face." Emily would skewer his eyes with a knife. We passed on this story to friends over dinner at Cheeburger Cheeburger, and laughed till our eyes watered. Of course, part of that was due to our rewriting of the old VBS favorite, "Roll the Gospel Chariot Along." Our new verse sings: "And if the devil doesn't like it, we will toot in his face (insert flatulent sound)." Aren't we mature? I guess one is never really too old for bathroom humor.

Then yesterday, 9-year-old Noah asked me to stop at the nearby gas/convenience store on our way home from some errands. He had money burning a hole in his pocket and had seen something there he wanted to buy. I asked him what it was and he said "handcuffs," only $3.99. OK, toy handcuffs... I can handle that. And I was pretty sure he had cleared this with his dad already. (He had.) So I pulled up to the entrance of the store and let him run in (I could see him at all times). He was back in 2 minutes. He pulled the handcuffs out of his bag... they were covered in neon orange fun fur! I just about died. Turns out Brian hadn't actually seen the handcuffs. I can only imagine what the clerk was thinking. Noah did say she asked him what he was going to do with them. He has since removed all traces of fur from them and they look perfectly respectable. Of course, I can't help but wonder what else was displayed there, but don't know if I should go look or not. Mortification. But I suppose that's what kids are for sometimes.