Little Box of Flies...

Colleen Battistoni

I was at the thrift store with my son today. Yes, I love thrift stores – finding treasures among the junk is a favorite pastime. My son is four, I usually write down these cute things he does on little slips of paper, and place them with my other keepsakes… but I thought maybe a “blog” might be the more “techno-mom” thing to do. Well, I’ll try it anyway but knowing me I’ll be back to my little slips of paper in no time.
Okay, back to the thrift store and my son’s immense cuteness…
We found some great items that I will not bore you with and headed to the checkout. Of course, even in a thrift store, they have to put the impulse buy items right up front… at kid’s eye view. Well, today, in the spirit of the season, they had “creepy creatures” – little plastic, super cheap, brightly colored bugs and such. Of course the first package he picks contains a large quantity of giant, VERY realistic looking COCKROACHES!!!
I am a total nature girl… except when it comes to cockroaches… or black widows… or mosquitoes, ticks, scorpions, poisonous snakes??? Other than that, nature girl all the way! Okay, most of the way?
Well, he asks just so sweetly and looks at me with those huge blue eyes “mommy can we get them?” holding up the clear plastic pouch of … oh so real-looking they are nearly alive and crawling… giant cockroaches. He gently persists and I gently sway towards a “no” when I think it is time for…. ta-da… the almost always successful…….. diversion tactic!
Here I go… “Oh look there are rats too, how about we get rats instead, you know how I feel about cockroaches” – this I say because being the nature girl that I am – I have no problem with rats. He prompts a no go on the rats but…. he does find some multi-colored flies and quite happily settles for those. Do I like flies? No, of course not, they are the most annoying things on the planet… but hey I can compromise! I ammm a nature girl, remember?
“How much are these?” I ask the cashier. “One dollar” okay, so I force up the buck to pay for these little plastic flies that I think will only entertain my son for maybe as long as the car ride home. Boy was I wrong!!! He showed them off to his sister and the neighborhood kids, he named – all twenty-four of them. And get this, he even wanted to sleep with them!!!
So we found a little jewelry box with one of those little pillow pads inside it and made them a bed. We then wrapped the box in string “so they wouldn’t get out” and off to dreamland went the boy and his little box of flies.
And yes… I got a picture!!!

Text Copyright Colleen Battistoni – please don’t use without my permission.

  • annamora

    annamora

    ..this is nice …. and I enjoy your style of writing Coleen …..
    Anna :)

  • Colleen Battis... replied

    thanks so much :-)

  • AngelMay

    AngelMay

    This is so cute…..........loved reading it.

  • Colleen Battis... replied

    Thank you, glad you got a kick out of it :-)

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