Just another day in the life of the She-Creature

Yesterday I was on the phone with Cully, having one of our all-encompassing, in-depth discussions, which often run the gamut of politics, religion, movies and comics, and pretty much anything is fair game.

At one point, I believe right after I'd asked if he knew what the difference was between "camel toe" and "moose knuckle" ... and he'd asked his studio mates if they knew, and we'd also checked Urban Dictionary to find that a moose knuckle was the same as a camel toe, just with a heavier set of "meat curtains" (also see "ninja boot") ... that's when from behind me, I hear the sound of a scuffle coming down the stairs, and I turn around as I realize the sound is actually the da-dun da-da-da-da-da dun dun DA-dun, DA dun dun DA-dun rhythm of the "Amok Time" fight theme.

(If you're not geeky enough to get that reference, then press play on the YouTube video below for a STAR TREK refresher.)

What I see is my son Aidan backing into the corner of the laundryroom, holding a sack full of heavy-ish round things ("Quarters?" I wonder at first glance) and he's using it to swing at Malachi, who's persuing him with a broken mop stick, wielding it with both hands to make jabbing motions at Aidan's chest. I swear he was trying to make that same slashing tear across Aidan's chest that Spock did to Kirk.

Anyway, it turns out when I step in finally that they are actually fighting over a really large Ziplock bag filled with Lifesavers. The first odd thing is the amount... there's like over 100 of them and I have no idea where they got them. The second odd thing is that they're all unwrapped... meaning that someone took the time to either unroll them from their grouped packages, or open those little individual plastic wrappings that you occasionally see. Either way, they were a mass of stuck-together Lifesavers that were being simultaneously used as a weapon and were the prize of the fight.

Aidan tried to say something about Malachi smashing something of his and he was going to take the Lifesavers as retribution, or something... I really didn't care. I simply swiped them from him and put them in my office, saying, "They're mine now. You can have them back when you can behave yourself." This appeased Malachi, but incensed Aidan... again, I didn't care. As warden, it's not my job to analyze the psychology of the moment. It's merely my job to diffuse the fights that break out in the yard.

An hour or so later, Aidan asked if he could have the Lifesavers back to share this time and I agreed... I think I was still on the phone and perhaps deeply involved in a conversation about a possible Edwards-Obama ticket in 2008... or maybe it was about different colors of people's genitalia (the purple penises are the weirdest -- like Frankenstein attachments, because the guy is never purple himself... am I right or what?).

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