Have you ever seen the game called “Gum
Guys”? There’s not much to it,
really. Each player gets a wad of some
silly putty-like material and uses it to stick together some semblance of a
character using other plastic pieces for head and arms and legs. The silly putty stuff is the body. Then the creatures are hung on a rack. One by one you add plastic weights to each
other’s gum guy. The first one to
stretch completely to the table loses.
Lots of fun.
With all the kids and grandkids around here
the last few days, things got pretty chaotic.
During one lull in the action when the older kids were engrossed in a
game on the Wii and the adults were having a conversation in the kitchen, the
current youngest one, Josiah, decided that he wanted the Gum Guys set up. He didn’t particularly need anyone to play
with him, just fix up one of the guys and hang it on the rack. That was accomplished easily enough by his
Mom, who then returned to her chatting.
Meanwhile Josiah watched. He
didn’t add any weights or anything. He
just watched. As it ever-so slowly began
to stretch, he was enraptured. His big
blue eyes seemed mesmerized by the pink wad of glob in front of him. It seemed to take forever to begin its
descent, but still he watched. And
obviously I still watched him. Finally
the stretching began to increase, and the look of wonder in his eyes began to
change. He looked away – to the
all-knowing adult population nearby – for some reassurance that what was
happening was actually supposed to happen.
And the creature stretched more.
The rest of the old people slowly realized what was happening and joined
my Josiah watch. The stretch
continued. The adults began to comment
on the progress. “There it goes.” “It’s stretching, stretching,
stretching.” At first Josiah was
delighted by the attention turned his way, but the look of amazement was gone
now completely. The sense of what was
actually happening to his little pink friend was beginning to sink in. Stretching.
Stretching. Faster. Faster.
At just about the point of no return, amidst the chanting and cheering
surrounding him, Josiah had had all he could stand. He began to tear up. He couldn’t bear to watch. He was frozen in horror, not able to reach out
the few inches to stop the awful event before him. His bottom lip puckered out. The noise abated as the old folks realized
what was happening. And just as he started
to cry, his Mom stepped in and rescued the not-quite-stretched beyond repair
Gum Guy. The ladies wore looks of great
concern and wanted nothing more than to console the poor little guy (Josiah,
not the pink blob). His Dad was somewhat
less sympathetic, sadly shaking his head.
His Uncle Josh reacted quite differently, however. No he didn’t cry along with the tyke. Much the contrary. He had to leave the room in a valiant but
impossible effort to conceal his laughter.
The whole thing reminded me of the time
when Kel was a kid. He got one of those Stretch
Armstrong dolls one Christmas. I
remember His uncles each grabbed an arm and a leg and pulled it almost to the
breaking point. Poor little Kel was
upset that they were hurting the guy. Much
later Kel was doing some experimenting of his own as to the restorative powers
of his new friend. He stabbed the doll
with a pen. It started oozing some kind
of gel (the doll, not the pen), and he totally freaked out. He was completely convinced that he had
killed the thing. Even the proverbial magic
bandaid over the doll’s wound couldn’t console him. We finally had to hide poor old Stretch
Armstrong from him. We told him it was
in the hospital (one of the multiple uses and designations of the top shelf of
a dark closet). Perhaps that incident was
what Kel was thinking about as he watched Josiah. A flashback to his own personal childhood tale
of horror.
Psalms 41:1 says, “Blessed is he who has regard for the weak; the Lord delivers him in
times of trouble.”
Father, calm fears and inspire
encouragement. Amen.
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