Things that poke

Matthew, my 7 year old, loves all things that I usually try to avoid. Most of these include rocks, dirt, tall trees, insects, snakes, mummies and pokey things, especially cacti. I'm on the 12-step program of accepting the dirt, rocks, mummies and pokey things into the house so on a trip to the grocery store nearly a year ago I let him pick out a cactus that we saw on clearance. "Mom, look, it's on SALE! Only $1.99! Can I get it? Huh, can I get it? Mom, can I get it?" Ok, fine, I let him get it even though I had a pretty good idea why there were several cacti on sale for $1.99; everyone else was too smart to bring home a stupid pokey thing!

Guess who repotted the stupid pokey thing? Me. Guess where it sits? Right by MY sink. Guess who takes care of it. Me.
And guess who gets poked by the stupid thing when I reach to get my scrubber that sits on the sink directly in front of it. You guessed it, me. This last time I reached up so innocently to get my scrubber the insanely sharp, poison coated pokers on the stupid pokey thing went up under my fingernail and poked me in the very sensitive nail bed. I yelped out an OUCH and contained myself from releasing any obscenities but really I was thinking "You little fracking cactus...who the hell let you in the house?" If it wasn't so pokey and downright evil I would have picked it up and threw it outside.

It is still sitting on my counter behind the sink but I'm thinking the boy who loves all things dirty should be caring for it in his room; maybe then he will rethink the $1.99 deal the next time.