Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Mr. Blue

If I remember things correctly -which sometimes I do when it pertains to something from way, way back -like my elementary or high school days -wasn't there a song that was popular at sometime with the words "I'm Mr. Blue" I think in the opening line? Well, something like that anyway. I don't remember any other words but do recall the melody a bit. Be glad I can't record my lovely once alto, now almost bass voice, trying to hum the melody for you now.

Anyway, I do believe my grandson either wanted to change his name to "Mr. Blue" or already thought perhaps that it was his name -at least judging by the appearance of his hands, in particular, the fingers of his left hand. Not that the right hand escaped unscathed but it wasn't near the color of the left!

Mandy left the house tonight about 6:45 to attend a church council meeting. Maya finished up what she wanted of her supper and then, disappeared to her room (aka MY room) to watch the Disney channel and play with her DS and Kurtis had been here in the living room with me. Then, about the time I realized it was ultra-ultra quiet in the living room, he appeared, coming from the bathroom and said something to me that I couldn't understand as he waltzed past me with a brief wave of his hands.

It was that hand wave that caught my eye -a tiny bit after the fact -but I did a double take, got up and looked at him sitting on the couch only to see -much to my chagrin -that his fingers on the left hand were a very, very, VERY dark, dark, REALLY DARK DEEP BLUE!

Yes at least one -probably a few more -expletive deleteds escaped from my mouth!

"Do not touch the couch, Kurt!" I roared at him!

Then, I grabbed him and marched him into the bathroom where I had to begin the job of trying to get whatever it was he had gotten into washed off his hands. Hopefully sometime this evening but at least before tomorrow morning was my prayer that the hands would come clean.

I began questioning him, in the hopes he would explain to me what this stuff was all over his hands but as soon as I started to ask questions, he immediately dissolved into tears. For the next 10 minutes, as I scrubbed -and scrubbed -then scrubbed a whole lot more -the only thing coming from his mouth that I understood at all was his repeating, over and over, "It'll be all right!"

I scrubbed his grubby little fingers first with hand soap, which didn't even make a dent in the color. So, from there I moved on to trying the lysol liquid cleaner stuff on top of the bathroom shelf. That took a tiny bit of the deep blue away but not near enough. Finally, in desperation, I grabbed the spray stuff of Clorox toilet bowl cleanser, squirted some of that on the washcloth and went to work on the blue fingers with that stuff. I was a little worried about using the Clorox stuff for fear combined with the wash cloth that I might wash skin off too but lucky for him -and for me too -it did take almost all the color and left all the skin, intact!

After that, it was pajama time and as I got him dressed for bed, I questioned him a bit again about what he'd been into. Finally, he pointed to this little box on the table in the living room that said something or other about SpongeBob Squarepants and indicated there was a marker pen that came with that box but I didn't see any marker things around so I asked Kurt where the marker was. It was then that he told me it was on the couch.

Talk about feeling a bit of a panic, I was about that time as I thought to myself, boy am I gonna be in deep doo-doo with your Mom when she comes home if this sofa has all kinds of dark, deep blue marker pen stuff smeared all over it!

Lucky for Little Mr. Blue, I found the marker -sans the cover being on it but I did also locate the cover too -and none of it -fortunately for Kurtis (and for me) was showing up anywhere on the couch cushions or under the cushions either (which was where I located the marker.)

I stuck that marker into the box and then, put the box up on top of the mantle while giving instructions to Kurtis that he is never, ever, ever again to touch that box. Actually, I told him don't even go NEAR it or even think about going near it!

What kind of company manufactures markers that won't even wash off tender skin on little kids anyway?

Only someone with an extreme hatred deep inside for parents and grandparents and no respect whatsoever for any kind of furniture.

That's my opinion anyway and I'm sticking to it!

5 comments:

terri said...

That sure doesn't sound like a marker that should be geared towards children! I thought most of them were now made to be very washable and many of them now only work on certain kinds of paper. I think you did the right thing taking that one away!

Jocelyn said...

For the rest of your days, you two are going to share the story of the time you scrubbed his hands raw--all for his benefit. I'm pretty sure you're my favorite grandma, you know. Well done!

Travis Cody said...

You recall correctly. The version of the song Mr Blue, or I'm Mr Blue, that I remember was performed by Bobby Vinton. It was also recorded by The Fleetwoods. It's been covered many other times as well.

It sure would be nice if all marker ink was more washable. Even us big guys sometimes miss the mark with a Sharpie.

Maggie May said...

Some of the things that are designed for children are outrageously ridiculous.
So pleased that the marker didn't ruin the sofa.
My heart was in my mouth for a minute!
Maggie X

Nuts in May

Suldog said...

Huh. Since he came from the bathroom originally, my guess was that he had somehow gotten his hands onto some sort of toilet bluing stuff, like a Tidy Bowl. That stuff is amazingly staining.