Backpack, Backpack

Haha. Awesome Dora the Explorer moment for me up there in the title. I really liked that show. My favorite part was the pauses, the pregnant pauses. It was nice how they gave kids a chance to answer, as if they were really interacting. Friendly, like.

Anyway. That is not what I am writing about today. No, today I write about my sons' backpacks and the shit I find within them. Some of you on facebook may have seen the photo of the apples, but for those who have not I offer descriptive prose:

I decided to clean out the boys' backpacks on Labor Day, as it seemed like a Labor that befitted the fall implications of the holiday. I may or may not have supervised the end-of-school cleanout, which came back to not only bite my in the face but give me rabies as well. Note to self: little boys have no morals when it comes to the contents of backpacks. Also they lack judgment in which things should be removed, i.e. organic materials.

I started with my younger son's pack. I found the most random collection of shit, from tiny alien action figures to math flash cards to a wad of thread. Nothing alarming, though. Until I got to the Bottom of the Main Compartment. That was when my life took a turn for the more infectious. I reached in and pulled out what I thought looked like a squashed Snickers bar, mini size. A friend was visiting and she pointed out that the snickers bar had a fruit sticker on it, so either it was grown in Paraguay or that fucker was actually an apple. It took me a moment to accept what I was seeing. I was seeing clear evidence that apples can pass time differently than one might expect, though I should have known that already from my dad's long term pasttime of aging fruit on the shelves of his office, the Office of Random Nerd Objects. Anyway, it was not slimy. Points for that.

I moved on to the darker deeper recesses of the Middle Compartment. There I found, and by found I mean was visually assaulted by, something similar to the Snickers apple but blacker and slightly furred. I pulled it out with shrieks and maybe a squeal or two. I do not know what it was, as the sticker was long gone. I mean, it was a fruit originally. But now it was more like a lightweight piece of coal with hair and wrath.

I took pictures of these items, Satan's peaches as I now think of them, and posted the pictures on facebook. I felt like the world needed to know what I went through on Labor Day. Also I was hoping that someone would offer carbon dating so I could more accurately assess the state of decay of the fruits. A timeline would help me make sense of things, I think.

A little therapeutic Haiku:

Fruit in the backpack
Forgotten for a long time
Looks like shit with hair


Mom sees Devil Fruit
It sends shivers down her spine
Fuck my life

I will be discussing my elder son's follies in another post.