The Penis Chronicles

I have a beloved girlfriend - you know who you are! - who blogs, and who recently wrote movingly about her small son's ...um... stiffy (http://wisewillow.blogspot.com/2008/10/my-giant-new-penis.html). Not to be outdone by anything as mundane as a mere woody, I now offer the following terrifying testicular tales, in two (of course) parts:


PART 1: Kindergarten

At the time, Number One Son was the only child, the DiPP not having been born yet, and Small Boy (a.k.a. "Number Two" when his diaper makes it appropriate) not even having been considered. So I was full of maternal pride, and - dare I say it - even a little bit misty at the prospect of Himself shuffling off to Big Boy School. And when he came home the first day clutching 'artwork' (which I dutifully hung on the fridge, and later tucked away in a trunk), I found my throat full and my eyes watery and avoided outright mawkishness only by a masterful display of self-control. And so it was in the land of the Hallmark moment, when Day 2 dawned bright and full of potential, and we trundled off to school again.


2 hours later, the phone rang.

"Mrs. Parent?" [Note: that is my actual name. O, the irony!]
"Um.. yes?"
"This is Mrs. Br----, the Assistant Principal at LES."

PANIC!!! He's HURT!! Some big nasty lummox pushed him on the playground and my PRECIOUS ANGEL IS HURT AND THEY'RE CALLING TO TELL ME HE'S IN THE HOSPITAL!!!!

Er - Wait. Wouldn't the Nurse be calling if he were hurt?

"...Hi... What can I do for you?"
"Well, there's been.. an incident. Involving Number One Son."
"An incident."
"Yes."
"An incident?"
"Yes, an incident."

Pause.

Is she going to tell me, or is it standard op that parents have to guess these sort of things? And just what does she mean by "incident", anyway? Did my son throw up on a visiting Japanese dignitary? Mistakenly sink a cruise ship in International waters? Does he o-ffend?

"Okay, what kind of incident?"

"Weeeellll..."

Pause spins on into infinity.

"... well, he, uh... it seems he was walking with several other boys to the boys' room, and, um..."

Second pause, longer - if that's even possible - than the first.


I begin to wonder: does this woman have regular contact with the public? If so, we may have to switch districts.


"... they were in the hallway, with other classes going by, and... well... your son, um..."

The woman is deeply hesitant.

I am starting to understand something. (Sing, choirs of angels!)

The something I am starting to understand is that problem here is not, in fact, that the woman is an imbecile, or even simply tongue-tied. The problem is that the woman is nice, and doesn't want to have to tell me whatever it is she has been charged with telling me. She is, in point of fact, embarrassed.

This indicates to me that very soon I will likely have to be embarrassed. My misty weepy feeling, so recently replaced by utter panic, is now freshly replaced by a seeping, amorphous dread.


"... well... "

deep breath

"...Your son pulled his pants down a little early, before they reached the bathroom in fact, and... er... shook himself at the passing children."

Shook himself, I think. Shook himself? Since when is shivering an offense? And why would he pull his pa - OHHH! "SHOOK HIMSELF".

Oy vey. *snerk!*

No! Stop that, this INSTANT! This is serious. He did this AT SCHOOL, and now the damn ASSISTANT PRINCIPAL is on the phone!

*giggleSNORT!*

Okay, it IS kind of funny. I know just what he did, too - something he does when he's drying off after a bath, which I refer to as the "hippy hippy shake", where he wriggles himself head-to-toe like a wet dog, head first, then shoulders, then working the wiggle down until, as we say only in the confines of our own bathroom (I hope, I hope), his "ding-dong dangles in the whing-whang."

Okay, OKAY! *grin* Try not to laugh at the nice lady. This is serious, really. Seriously. This could go on his permanent record! (Do they even have permanent records in Kindergarten??) He could be eternally labeled, branded a...a... a penis-shaker! A hip-wiggler! A DING-DONG DANGLER!!

Oh my god, STOP ALREADY!

*helpless giggling, stifled behind a fake cough*

So I manage to contain myself long enough to make some appropriately appalled comments:
"Oh my god, I'm appalled. He's never done anything like this before!"

(True. Well, in public, anyway.)

She is kind to me. She tells me it's just kids being kids, boys especially, and that the unholy fascination with their dangly bits that grips them - you should pardon the pun - so firmly after puberty begins well before then. That he is, in that respect, right on schedule. She even goes so far as to tell me that her very own son did the same thing when HE was in Kidergarten, only it was much more humiliating because she worked in the school.

And just when I am on the cusp of being mollified... Just when the sudden overlap that had appeared between my safe Mommyland this new and hostile Educational Incident Territory seemed to be retreating... she says, in a voice so sweet it would give a gingerbread man Diabetes:
"Of course, I have to notify the parents of everyone he exposed himself to. I won't use his name, but I want to call them all before the kids come home and tell their parents all about Number One Son's penis!"


And they wonder why I never attended any of those PTA meetings.