We have a couple LED flashlight key chains whose sole purposes are to keep the kids entertained on occasion. For example, when the 300+ toys in their playroom aren't enough, a $1 key chain can do the trick. One is a pig and another is a frog. They each emit a twice repeated animal sound and shine a bright blue LED light. The pig's light is emitted through it's nostrils and the frog's through it's mouth.
We keep our pigchain and frogchain in a kitchen drawer where we also keep silverware. We sometimes place our children's toys near sharp objects. This works for us because the toys divert their attention away from the hazardous utensils. I'll admit that it doesn't always work; the strategy is flawed.
A couple weeks ago, the button on the pigchain got stuck which resulted in a continuous oink. The robotic "oink oinks" were repeated at a rate of one per second.
Oink oink
Oink oink
Oink oink
As any father and loving husband would, I tried for an unreasonable amount of time to un-stick the button. My efforts were to no avail. Therefore, I did the next best thing. I simply placed the pork next to a fork and closed the drawer.
By now, the kids had already forgotten about the pig. But, my wife and I were haunted by the quiet and muffled sound of the pig in the kitchen drawer.
Oink oink
Oink oink
Oink oink
"Are you just going to leave it in there?" asked my wife.
"He'll stop oinking eventually," I replied morbidly.
Later that evening as we cleaned up the kitchen, we could still hear him whenever we approached the silverware drawer. As I headed towards the stairs for the night, I was greeted as I am every night by my son's talking number puzzle. It seems that toys are talking to me constantly and without reason. This particular puzzle usually speaks when the lights go on or off. On this particular night, lights out prompted a "Nine" which I remember vividly for it was also the time on the clock. The talking puzzle tends to get personal with a loud "Zero" when I'm feeling overly critical of myself.
The next morning, the search for a spoon to stir my coffee also reminded me of our dying pigchain. He was still oinking, but much quieter now and most likely feeling defeated. I was sad, but needed coffee and moved on.
Since then, the pig has been quietly laying in the drawer. That is, until yesterday when my son rediscovered him. And to our amazement, his little fingers brought the pig back to life! In reality, the "little pig that could" had a bit more oink left after all. The kids were pleased for another 10 minutes until the oink was gone once more. Back in the drawer, the pig was forgotten again.
This morning, I pressed the pig's button one last time to discover that the pig had lost his oink forever.
RIP Pigchain.
We'll miss you.
At least until the coffee is done brewing.
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2 comments:
SOOOOOOOO funny!!! I loved "pork by the fork"! And "pigchain"! Hysterical.
I can truly relate to this post. My kids have one of those farm animal sound puzzles which are so sensative to light that just the sun moving through the windows will produce the random oink, niegh, or rooster crow. The most I had when I was a kid was a toy phone that might produce a ring if you dropped it on the floor hard enough.
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