Drool Frog

Jon had a late night flight tonight, so he got to hang out with us all day. We took full advantage, trying a new Thai place and alternately chasing Nate and pretending we didn't know him as he threw Bizzy Bear books on the floor at Barnes and Noble. It's ironic that, in order to fully concentrate on checking out books I might want to buy to read to my son (a sweet, albeit naive daydream), I had to completely ignore the fact that that same personage was climbing on the displays (which is not sweet... only obnoxious).

So we got fed up and went to World Market to strap him into a cart. Naturally, the browsing-while-confined thing doesn't suit the third member of the family, so we picked up a cheap frog bathtub toy - the kind that squirts water out of its mouth - and handed it over to buy us some time. Within feet of the frog display, he had chewed off the price tag, so we grabbed another and threw it in the cart, so that there would be something to ring up. When I got to the register, I pulled them both out with a, "So we don't want this one, but figured you needed a tag to scan, since he chewed the price tag off of this...one..." and as I said the second "this one", I squeezed it and a long, steady stream of drool shot out of the plastic frog at the cashier woman, splattering across the counter.

"Oh. Uh. Sorry... you don't have to touch that one... I'll just put it back in the cart..."

It's okay, she reassured me, with an "I hate kids" grimace... she had worked at Disneyland once. She then, painstakingly, wiped up the drool with a paper bag, holding it away from her with the very tips of her fingers.

Disney can't be a very clean place to work, but I bet no one water-gunned her with drool during her time there. Leave it to us to turn a dry bathtub toy into a working drool frog... no bath needed.