Crumpled Home

RJ is playing around a stream at a nature playground. He leaps across the stream, climbing stick in hand. Scrambling along the steep bank, he braces his stick and leaps across a yawning chasm between two boulders. He lands safely and sprints over a log that bridges the burbling torrent below. He briefly pauses to gauge the size of his biggest, final jump and with a mighty spring, flies across the gap to land at Dad’s feet.

RJ: Made it! That’s ten times around! I’m also proud to report that we have “Zero days without injuries”!

(LR heads downstairs, almost in tears)

LR: I just whacked my elbow on the door and it really hurts. It feels really weird — buzzy.

Dad: Let’s have a look… Oh yeah. That would be your funny bone. There’s a spot there where you can easily whack the nerve and it feels awful. Not very funny at all.

RJ: (yelling from across the room) I’ll show you MY funny bone! Mine is really funny.

Dad: Okay. Show it to us!

RJ: (spins around) … IT’S…

RJ: (bends over, waving his backside at the room) … RIGHT …

RJ: (and starts whacking his rear end) … HERE!

(while eating breakfast)

LR: Dad, now my other foot is hurting.

Dad: From yesterday, on the trampoline? Not a good sign. You know what they do with horses when they break a leg or seriously hurt themselves?

LR: No?

Dad: They shoot them.

LR: You can’t shoot me!

Dad: I know. We’ll come up with another plan instead.

RJ: How about we just build a pyramid and bury her inside with some slaves and some of those beetles?

Dad: Nice idea. We can leave the cat in there too!

LR: Noooooo!

Dad: How about we find her a job where she doesn’t have to walk around much?

RJ: Why don’t we cover her in honey, and stand her in the corner so that all the flies and mosquitoes stick to her.

Dad: Great idea!

LR: Nooooo!

RJ: Okay then. We don’t have a choice. We’ll have to put her on a boat with all her weapons and set her on fire.

Dad: I’ve always loved a good Viking burial!

LR: But… But… But, I don’t have a wife to burn with me, so you’d have to throw my best friend on there, and L.’s parents would be REALLY MAD if you did that!

(after school)

RJ: And I fell down and really hurt myself! I was bleeding from my elbow, but not my knee.

Dad: I see you’ve got two bandaids on your knee though.

RJ: Yes. Mum put them there, but… She didn’t wash it first! It might have germs in it!

Dad: Did you tell her to wash it?

RJ: YES! But she didn’t have her listening ears on, or her thinking brain switched on, or her remembering skeleton working! (throws up his hands) Ugh!

Something that comes up from time to time is RJ’s previous life. It almost always starts out with, “When I was a little kid…” and describes a time “before he came to live with our family.” Apparently he lived only with his grandma, because everyone else in the family died. Today, I discovered a little more…

(over breakfast)

RJ: When I was a little kid… I got stabbed.

Dad: Stabbed? You mean before you came to live with us?

RJ: Yeah. When I was living with my grandma… in Malaysia.

Dad: Malaysia? Okay… How did it happen?

RJ: I was playing with a pen and I stabbed my knee. I still have a little sore on my knee from it. See?

Dad: And that’s also why there’s ink all over your knee right now?

RJ: Yeah.

Dad: Strange that I’ve never noticed that before.

RJ: Yeah.