A NEW FRAME OF REFERENCE
A wonderful friend of mine once shared a story about her son getting a tick... down there... She and her husband attempted to remove it with tweezers. Using tweezers anywhere near a boy's beanbags is a sure-fire way to incite your neighbor to call Child Protective Services. One can only imagine the shrieks (the boy's in fear, hers from hysterical laughter) that emerged from her house that summer evening.
The incident has since become a barometer for all of life's mishaps. You split your pants on the playground? Well, at least you didn't have a tick on your scrotum. You dropped your purse and tampons shot out of it like shrapnel? At least your Mom didn't try to change your gender with tweezers. You get the idea.
I thought the tick story had the corner on all-things simultaneously funny and awful when dealing with a male's nether regions. Until last night. My young teenaged son took a shower, got in his jammies (yes - I still call them his 'jammies') and it was a good 20 minutes afterward when he came to me with fear in his eyes. "Mom, I need your help." I jumped into action not knowing what to expect next - grab the Bactine and the bandages? An icepack from the freezer? Nope. This was a new one.
My son is a bubblegum fiend. He'd gone into the shower with his left cheek swollen with his 'fix'. Apparently, he had tried to blow a bubble and it shot out of his mouth and landed in his, well, his 'privates.' He managed to pull the biggest chunk off, but its sticky pink residue remained. He had hoped it would just wear off but it was now sticking to his pajama pants (Did I mention they were fleece?) and he was completely freaking out. Seriously... fleece...
I am normally very calm and collected when dealing with an injury or illness with my children. I know what to do and I do it. This time my brain must've been misfiring from the stifled laughter because I told him to get back into the shower and turn the water on as hot as he could stand it and try to melt it off. *I literally just shook my head in disdain while writing that sentence.* What was I thinking? I bet you know what happened. It melted alright - but not away - instead his entire groin looked like it was glazed in melted cotton candy. Now his skin was as red as a cooked lobster and his privates were covered in pink (or so he informed me through the bathroom door, accusingly).
Before you say it, I now know that peanut butter and ice cubes would've been the right way to go. Instead, my boy spent the next 10 minutes with a pair of cuticle scissors (note to self - pick up new pair asap) in his sweaty, red-skinned hands. Yes - the worst part of this story, at least in his eyes, is that he had to part with his newly-earned pubic hair. He had walked a little taller after informing me that he'd begun to grow man-fur - and now, deflated, he skulked back to his room with a sticky, half-bald crotch and covered in first-degree burns.
At least it wasn't a tick.