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Spaghetti Fingers
... A Laugh
My colleague Nathaniel was young, childless and handsome. I suppose I could best describe him as thin, neat and ambitious. But he made the mistake of calling in at my home, unannounced, around meal time to discuss how he could improve his chances of promotion. I was his assigned mentor so he assumed it was okay to do so.
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As usual he was impeccably dressed: pale blue linen jacket, white pressed T-shirt, designer denim jeans and Italian loafers. This guy had the lightest blue eyes I've ever seen. All the younger women on the staff were in love with him. He smelled of sandalwood and Old Spice.
But unfortunately, when he arrived, I was already feeding my son. So he had no choice but to stay near me, if he wanted to chat.
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With the power of hindsight I should have been up front and said it wasn't a good time. But being a typical mum I thought I could handle it all.
Big mistake.
Now at the time I was allowing my eight month old to feed himself. About one mouthful in three of the spaghetti was actually making it into his mouth. Most ended up in his hair, his lap, on his chest. Some even made it up the wall.
He continually reached out towards my 'clean' visitor trying to touch him with his spaghetti fingers. But Nathaniel wasn't having any part of it.
His already large blue eyes were becoming wider and wider by the minute. He continually calculated the distance between himself and the mucky child... Basically his chances of getting out unscathed. He flinched every time my son's cast offs came even close.
But when my son upended his bowl on his own head Nathaniel's eyes began to look hunted... Like they wanted to escape what they were being forced by circumstance, to see.
To his credit, Nathaniel stayed focused talking about his goals (in a somewhat distracted fashion.) And I listened, adding comment where I thought appropriate. ​
But then my son began to cough and splutter... And choke.
If the guy thought it had been bad up until then, he was in for a horror show.
My son's eyes bulged. His face reddened. Then he exploded.
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DISCLAIMER: Any similarities in the stories on this page, to people living or deceased, are purely co-incidental... After all, you never let the truth spoil a good story.
Now because I'd been through this experience many times before, I was prepared. I leapt forward like a Ninja, and caught my son's 'geyser' in my hands, without spilling a drop.
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I rushed to the sink, tipped the vomit in, scrubbed my hands with the strongest-smelling hand wash I could find and returned with a beaming smile.
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But Nathaniel's eyes had bugged out of his head. He shut down. Mumbled something about needing to go. Grabbed his leather satchel and disappeared.
​I thought: 'It wasn't that bad. Really, was it? But to be fair, when even the animals disappear...
"Having kids is like living in a frat house - nobody sleeps, everything's broken and there's a lot of throwing up." Ray Romano
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