I was on the couch, chewing on a straw, watching TV many moons ago, when my youngest son approached my throne.
“Arggh argghzhin rumblph,” he said.
He obviously had something in his mouth that was prompting even more garbled gibberish than usual.
“Son, what’s in your mouth?” He opened his mouth, where I witnessed a huge, mangled eraser atop his tongue.
“Son, don’t ever put erasers, or anything else that isn’t food, in your mouth,” I commanded, straw betwixt my incisors. He spit out the offensive item in the trash and merrily went his way.
This, unfortunately, wasn’t an isolated incident. It’s been going on for years. During our years of child-rearing, we’ve found all forms of non-edible items in our children’s mouths – gem clips rather than gem squash; cutlery instead of cucumber; Hot Wheels instead of hot dogs.
I tend to blame any of our children’s shortcomings on my wife, but I can’t lie (which is a lie). Truth is, this one is on me.
I have a long and detailed history of eating, chewing and sometimes choking on inedible objects.
At 3, I ate dirt with my grandparents’ dachshund. From what I remember, it wasn’t that bad.
At 5, I swallowed a quarter. My parents took me to the doctor, where an X-ray was taken. I still have that X-ray — my wee skeleton with a shiny quarter dead in the middle of my rib cage, so clear you can almost read “In God We Trust.”
At one point during my youth, I had swallowed a quarter and a dime in the same week – the only time I was actually worth 35 cents in my life.
In fourth grade, I grew tired of coin-swallowing and decided to chew on a giant button for some reason. I swallowed the button and an alert substitute teacher — Mrs. Stevens, God bless her — saw me gasping for air on the playground.
She utilized the Heimlich maneuver and the giant button came flying out. I haven’t chewed on a giant button since, no matter how tempting.
I also used to eat and chew on paper, which, I reasoned, was high in fiber and low on calories.
This habit of chewing on unchewable items isn’t limited to the males of the Robbins clan.
A number of years ago, over 20 in fact, we were at a high school basketball game and my wife noticed our daughter, then 3 or 4, was chewing something.
“What are you chewing?” Our daughter opened her mouth to reveal a wad of gum – in all of the colors of the rainbow.
“Gum,” she gleefully exclaimed.
“Where’d you get that gum?”
Our daughter pointed under the bleacher seat in front of her.
“I got it from under there,” she said, my wife’s jaw dropping in horror. “There’s more if you want some.”
They immediately went to the bathroom, probably to wash her mouth out with soap. I immediately went into convulsions of hilarity.
Heredity and what-not.
• Len Robbins is the editor of The Clinch County News. He can be reached at lrobbins@clinchcounty news
