Chip off the Old Block

I still don't know how I managed to get three splinters in my foot, since my shoes never left my feet yesterday.

Anyway, I limped downstairs to give Nic our schedule today and interrupted myself with a complaint about my foot.

"You have a splinter?" Nic asked. He jumped up and raced upstairs, calling over his shoulder. "Don't worry mom, I'll get it out."

I put on a light and moved under it so he could see better. Nic raced back down the steps with a pair of tweezers. "Okay mom, let's see."

He examined my foot with a seriousness that made me smile. "You have three here, mom. Okay, hold still."

And as quickly as it took me to type this line, he had all three out, lined up neatly on the coffee table. He picked up the biggest one and held it out to me proudly. "This is the one you told me about, but you had a couple others."

I made a fuss over him, thanked him profusely, kissed him on the cheek, and he blushed a little and raced back into the den to play on his computer. This called to mind an incident more than half my lifetime ago, in an old apartment building in Mount Airy when his dad did the same thing. It was a bigger splinter, took a lot longer, and I had Art and Hannah's cats curled up around me to give me comfort.

Like father, like son. Too damn cool.