Carcinogens, E-Coli and a Mooky Nose

I am a Bear den leader at Cub Scouts, and today was our den meeting. Consequently, when I got home it was dinner time, and there was no dinner to be found anywhere. I was planning hamburgers, but I just needed to put my feet up a minute because Cub Scouts wears me out. You know, nine-year-old boys and all. Fine, I only have one Bear, but he wears me out, okay?! Besides, there’s all that rural traffic. It’s getting worse every day. Today there were like four cars at the stop sign.

So I was at home, putting my feet up, sitting at the computer checking my boys’ school, looking at the news, reading e-mails (okay, okay, I was also checking blogs, but I had to see how many comments Sue the navel gazer had achieved). That’s when Clarissa came in crying.

Crying I can handle, but crying with a green runny nose is just too much. I mean, this mucus was hanging down past her top lip. Ugh, didn’t anybody wipe her nose the whole time I was gone? Then she wiped her nose with her hand and smeared the green slime up way past her cheek bone, which then stringed out as if it was cheese on a pizza when she pulled her hand away from her face.

She held her arms out to me asking silently for me to hold her. Hunh, hunh, hunh. I love her, but not her snot. I held her at arm’s length and asked her why she was crying. “I hungy”. Okay, I can fix that. I get up and go to the kitchen, eliciting more crying as she thought I was ignoring and abandoning her.

I threw a frozen hamburger patty on the fire and turned it up high. I coaxed the hamburger “Hurry, hurry, hurry”. But then, somewhere in the recesses of my addled brain, a memory surfaced which was that meat cooked at a high temperature, until the edges are crispy, have carcinogens. Hmm. I looked at the hamburger, I looked at Clarissa. The nose excrement was now hanging past her belly button. Burn, baby, burn!

Well, it was looking pretty done on the outside, but when I pierced the center, it was still more than a little pink. An E-coli threat. I looked at the patty, and I looked at my baby. She was holding her hands out to me again. Hey, we’ll say a blessing on the hamburger and, Voila, no E-coli, right?

I cut her burger in fourths, cleaned her face, and set a happy toddler down to eat. She took one bite, spit out the meat, and promptly fell asleep. The dog ate the rest of the hamburger. Eh, the dog can get cancer and e-coli, I don’t care. Besides, she eats the poopy diapers out of the garbage. I’m sure she will survive.