Thursday, December 08, 2005

Look, Ma. No Hands!

There’s something wonderful about the minds of children (and writers) that allow them to take the simplest of subjects and see it in a new light. Most people spend their lives taking things at face value, as presented. But kids tend to pick something up, turn it upside down, try to wear it on their heads, make it talk, etc. I’m constant amazed at the things they come up with.

I’m one of the leaders of Monkey Boy’s Cub Scout den and at a meeting the other night, this phenomenon visited upon us. The other leaders and I were leading a discussion about simple First Aid. Now we’re not talking tourniquets and splints, mind you – these are 7-year-old boys. Before we knew it, they’d be applying tourniquets left and right, losing circulation and limbs. Who wants that kind of liability? No, we were talking about washing and dressing a simple cut.

When one of the other leaders mentions that it’s a good idea to wash your hands before treating your own or anyone else’s injury, Monkey Boy blurts out “What if you don’t have any hands?”

Before you could say “bandaid”, the rest of the boys seized on this idea and the conversation quickly jumped the rails.

“You’d have to do first aid with your feet.”
“You could use your teeth.”
“Or your nose”
“Yeah, but what if you had hooks?”
“On your nose?”
“No, instead of hands”
“Cool, or lobster claws?”
“Yeah!” (The boys start miming lobster claws on each other)
“Or alien hands?”

Now I have no idea what alien hands are, but somewhere between lobster claws and the alien hands, the other fathers and I went from trying to restore order to completely losing it. The entire group, kids and dads, were laughing so hard tears streaked our faces.

I’m not sure they’ll remember the first aid lesson but we sure will. And the amazing minds of children.

2 comments:

MF said...

My 7 year old does this all day long every day. His vivid imagination makes it difficult to get through the simplest tasks, but it sure does make everything more interesting and fun.

4CallingBirds said...

Hi J --

Welcome. Thanks for tuning in again.