Some days I think I missed my true calling as a preschool teacher. I mean, not on Wednesday, when I saw CJ’s teacher carrying a pail and rubber gloves into the kids’ bathroom. But other days.
Like Thursday when I picked CJ up. She was sitting at a table with two other girls, eating chips. I sat next to them and CJ held out a chip to me. I snapped it out of her hand. We do that sometime.
Then one of the other girls held out a chip, and I snapped that up, too. The third girl laughed and fed me one of her chips.
CJ introduced me: “This is my daddy. You can tell because he shaved all his hair off. His head feels scritchy. You want to feel it?” The next thing I knew all three girls were laughing and rubbing my head like Buddha’s belly. Then Cassie said: “He also likes it when you get up real close to his face, like this.” And she touched my nose to hers and laughed. “You want to try it?” It was a high-speed trip to Silly City.
The next day I came back, a little early. But the girls weren’t there. Instead CJ was with a boy who looked at me and said, “What happened to your face?”
I didn’t know what he was talking about, but I could think of some possibilities. And I decided not to ask.
