Day In the Life

I Am Often Unprepared For, Well, Anything (Day 56)

A boy stumbles into our kitchen, disheveled and near tears. He has dirty blond hair and his cheeks are red.

I stand there and look at him for a couple seconds.

“Who are you?” I ask. I have no idea who this child is.

“I’m Donnie,” he says. This does not help me at all. “I burned myself,” he says. He holds up his hand and sure enough there’s a big red welt near his wrist. “It hurts,” he says.

“How did you burn yourself,” I ask this stranger.

“Glue gun.” There’s still pieces of drying glue stuck to his arm. “Also, Nevin threw my drum into a tree.”

“I… what?”

My wife jumps in at this point, thankfully, going full-throttle mom in, like, two seconds. She pulls Donnie into the kitchen and applies water and then some ointment before a bandage.

“Who is this?” I ask her.

“This is Donnie, he lives down the street.”

“Is.. is he part of the gang?” I realize I’m talking about the boy like he’s not there.

“He comes around sometimes, not when you’ve been around obviously.”

The best I could find was drums made out of trees.

The kids begin to pile in behind Donnie, including Nevin.

“Nevin,” I say, “what’s this about Donnie’s drum?”

“What?” says Nevin.

“He says you threw his drum into a tree.”

“Oh that, yeah I did,” Nevin says.

“He said he’d buy me a new one,” Donnie offers, as my wife finished bandaging him up.

“A new drum?” I say.

“It’s not a real drum like you’re thinking,” my wife says. “It’s like a toy, like a paper thing.”

Both boys are nodding furiously at this. Little Bean come crashing in behind them with the rest of the gang and soon all is forgotten amid the chaos.

Later, after the kids have gone home and everything is quiet, I say, “Who the heck is Donnie?”

In response, Little Bean and my wife just break out in giggles.