“Mom, it’s so hot outside. I think the sidewalk is going to melt.”
“Now, Georgie, don’t give me any trouble. You know that I’m going to have company this afternoon and I need to clean the house and get ready. My old friend, Gloria, is coming and I want to impress her. I haven’t seen her for years, and she’s always been very special to me.
“Just go outside and play.”
“O.K., but it sure is hot out there. I’ll bet it’s a gazillion degrees, honest.”
“Gazillion or not, please make it easier for me and go outside and play with your friends. Jeffrey’s your best friend and he must be outside playing too. Why don’t you go and find him?”
“All right… I’ll go out, but can I get a drink first? I’ll be really careful and won’t spill anything. I promise.”
“Sure, that’ll be fine. Just put your glass in the sink and I’ll wash it later. Have fun outside.”
Now, getting that drink was the beginning of the problem. The refrigerator had lots of orange juice in it, Georgie’s favorite, but he wanted it to be really cold, to brace himself for the “gazillion” degree heat. Lots of ice cubes would do the trick, so he loaded the glass, filled it with juice and gulped it down in a few seconds.
“Mom, I’m going out now. Call me when I should come in.”
“Have fun, Georgie. Try not to get dirty. I want you looking great for when you meet Gloria.”
Just as he was leaving the kitchen, Georgie had a “great idea.” He went to the fridge, opened the freezer, and filled his front pockets with ice cubes. “I’ll be nice and cool now,” he thought. “And these front pockets are really big, so they hold lots of ice. It’ll be like walking with a personal air conditioner right on me.”
But sometimes, what seems like a stroke of genius at one moment, can be a cause of disaster just a little while later.
Georgie found Jeffrey down the street, playing “poison” marbles with Bruce and Neil, two tough kids from around the block. For at least that moment, everyone was getting along together, no arguments, no bullying, just a game of marbles in the dirt.
Georgie always carried some marbles in his back pocket, just in case. He had ten of them and one was an incredible beauty, a big glass “jumbo.” In Poison, after making the round of holes dug out of the dirt, without being hit by other marbles, a marble became a “killer,” and would win “for keeps,” any marble he could roll and hit. Georgie was good at it and had won a lot of other kids’ marbles playing “Poison for Keeps.”
So he got down on his knees and got out his marbles to play. The only problem was, his air conditioning system was clearly malfunctioning. Oh, he was cool enough, but the ice in his pockets had begun to melt, slowly, wetting the front of his pants. By the time he had gotten his first marble through two holes, the front of his pants was soaked from the ice.
Georgie didn’t want to stop playing, but Bruce, from around the corner, noticed the wetness and started yelling and pointing. “Georgie peed in his pants. Look! He PEED in his PANTS. What a baby.” Then he started chanting, “Georgie peed in his pa….nts, Georgie Peed in his pa….nts.”
Although he started trying to explain, it was too late. Georgie was now in no position to do anything but start swinging at Bruce. In seconds, the two were fighting on the ground, marbles rolling in every direction.
When it was over, Bruce had some scrapes on his elbows and a red spot under his eye and Georgie’s shorts were no longer just wet. They had become mud, the water and dirt having mixed together. His nose was bleeding. His shirt was torn, he was blubbering, just a little bit, and his beloved Jumbo had disappeared.
It had been the sound of Georgie’s mother calling him, “Georgie, Georgie, come home now. Gloria just got here and I want her to meet you,” that stopped the fight.
Totally humiliated, Georgie picked himself up and slowly started trudging home to meet Gloria.
When he got to the back door, his mother opened it. One look was all it took. She didn’t bother to ask him what had happened. She started doing that whisper-yelling that mothers use when they get angry and they don’t want anyone but the recipient to hear. “You, you, how could you do this to me? Go and get yourself cleaned up. Then, you’ll meet Gloria and when she leaves…….YOU’LL BE SORRY!”
