Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Stinky Knee

Here's how this little incident went down:

Finny is sitting on the floor, contorted into some weird pretzel shape, as usual. All of a sudden she states, "Weird, my knee is stinky.' Yeah. That is weird. Intrigued, she sniffs the other knee. "No," she declares, "just one stinky knee." Even weirder.

That is where the story could easily end.

But it doesn't. Molly, also piqued by the stinky knee, wants to smell it. Finny, eager to have something interesting and coveted under her control, exerts that control(for whatever reason a stinky knee is prized, I can't comment on that). "No," she says, "you may not smell my stinky knee." Hysterics ensue. Molly pitches a fit that reaches a level only attainable by the truly reasonless. The highlight (and possibly the craziest sentence I have heard in a while) was this: "I will never love you again if you don't let me smell your stinky knee!"

While I (vainly) contemplate the possible discipline appropriate to intervene with, Finny silently sneaks off and washes the stinky knee. Stink no more. The problem quickly passes once the offending odour has been removed. And I, I am thankful that I did not have to come up with an "appropriate consequence" for that one...

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm reminded of an early Nicholson Baker novel, in which he describes his young self hunkered on the ground, his nose to one "interesting smelling knee".

Anonymous said...

Yeah...that would be a hard one to intervene on probably - "No, you let your sister smell your stinky knee right now!" Who knew a foul smelling body part could cause such hysterics. Do we know the source of the stinky knee?

Sorry you didn't win the Brain, Child subscription:( I did a random drawing for it, so your assurance that it would be passed on, while tempting, wasn't really in effect.

Anonymous said...

I like the stinky knee fight... this would absolutely happen at my house... smelling, crying, threats and sneaky washing.
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