Fall Guy

Originally uploaded by kjda

This is a little suction cup guy we have had for at least eight years.
Isn’t it funny how some things just stick around? I am a big purger of
things, but somehow, some stuff sticks. (I am thinking, for example,
of the ancestral family beach towels. I have beach towels that I’ve
had since I was five.)

Bear with me, I do have a point. At mile 28 or so today, Sam’s wheel
went out from under him or some such thing, and he skidded off his
bike and hit pavement (and I, in my panic that he was lying on Rte 10,
promptly stopped, failed to unclip my left foot and went down too). He
thougt fast and shoved himself out of the street–good, because I was
essentially stuck under my bike) but he had two skinned knees and
tears dripping down. And I, even riding my old bike with the handlebar
bag, did not have a bandaid.
Tears and sniffles from game but still really quite small kid ensued,
and I rummaged frantically and came up with…a small plastic suction
cup penguin. That had been in that bag since Sam was small enough to
sit in a seat behind me on the bike and require distraction.
I produced it. When you were a baby, I said, you couldn’t resist this
guy. Here, look, I’ll make him jump! Here he is, happy penguin!
Sam cracked a smile. And the help van arrived, and THEY had a bandaid.
But no penguin.
I really am an ok mom, in my own peculiar way. Some moms have
bandaids. I have a penguin. That’s just the way it is around here.
KJ Dell’Antonia
sent from my iPhone