On Monday night M achieved 2nd Class rank in Boy Scouts. The way his troop handles the awards ceremony, not only does the Scout receive a cloth badge for his uniform, but he is also handed a small metal pin with a miniature symbol of the rank badge, and he is told “In recognition of your parents’ love and support, place the miniature pin on your mother.”
It’s a pin with a single prong on the back and the kind of clasp you pinch to remove. It was clear M had no idea how to remove the clasp, so I took that off for him. And then M, with an impressively confident flourish of “I have no clue what I’m doing, but I’m going to pretend that I do,” stabbed the pin directly into my shoulder.
Fortunately for me, I was wearing a very heavy wool sweater, so the prong didn’t reach my skin and the pin actually stayed in place without a clasp long enough for M and I to get off the stage. But I definitely heard a number of muffled giggles from the audience at M’s approach to the problem: “In recognition of your parents’ love and support, please stab your mother in the shoulder.”
I strongly suspect you are not the first Mom to have this exact show of gratitude
I know it’s my own fault, but I was skimming LJ while on the phone with someone who didn’t take my hint that I wanted to end the call; and your post nearly made me giggle aloud, which would have served me right.
Then I read it properly when I was off the phone, and I *did* giggle aloud.
Teenagers are a riot sometimes.