is anyone out there???

The innocence of youth

At church my kids gathered around me fascinated. I'm not sure what the big deal was, but they had discovered that when they pinched the skin on the back of their hand, and they let go, it snapped right back into place. However, when they did this to my hand, it had a delayed reaction. It went down much slower and they thought this was very entertaining.

I was patient and let them have their fun. But after 15 minutes of them pinching my hand to repeatedly compare it to their own---younger, much firmer hands, I'd had enough. Instead of standing up in the middle of church and screaming "LEAVE ME ALONE!" at the top of my lungs like I wanted to, I chose a second option---a loud whisper. I'm sure it was louder than appropriate in church, but I wanted to make sure all four of my kids heard me, so I wouldn't have to repeat myself.

"When you pinch my hand and the skin doesn't go back down at all---THAT'S when you know I'm old." I told them (I'm not dead yet) and with that, I sat on my hands, game over!

I looked over to see what my kids would entertain themselves with now and saw they had gathered around their dad, pinching his hand. In fact, it looked like Heather had her watch and was timing just how long it took his skin to mold back in place. I almost felt sorry for him, but instead I thought, "Better him then me," and decided I could listen to the rest of the meeting in peace now---at least while I was young enough to still have my hearing...