Samuel and the Play Date

What does eating a sandwich tell about you?

Anxiety vibrated in the air as Samuel’s mother knocked on a red door.  The door was opened by an equally anxious, smiling nervously mother.   Ah.  So this is the ‘play-date’.  Interesting…

Two more mothers called out, and Samuel was dragged into the tv room where three other bewildered children sat.  Legos and action figures lay scattered around them.  An offering of some sort, obviously.

“Now, let’s have lunch!”  Someone announced, and the four children were plopped down at a child’s table in their colorful chairs.  IKEA…

Plates of sandwiches and potato chips were slid in front of each, IKEA child-safe cutlery, pieces of watermelon, and juice boxes (straws inserted) were set down.

Silence, long and drawn out, echoed as each child sized the other up for reference.    

So much can be learned by the way one holds a juice box, how one sucks on the deadly straw.  How the sandwich is held speaks a world of information. And the forks, oh the forks--that told the most. Blue iced cupcakes are not meant for just eating.

By lunch’s end, it was clear:  Samuel was the Alpha, Charlie the Omega.  Clarisse—sassy deceptive girl—was a she-devil.  Buddy was easily manipulated.  The game is afoot, friends.

We love IKEA!

When the front door closed amid tears and apologies after the play-date concluded, much had happened.  The leather sofa had been stabbed to death with the plastic juice box straws and IKEA forks.  The blood red juice stained the carpet in big drops.  The dog cowered beneath the sofa, shivering in his blue icing stripes.

So much more could have been done.  Samuel waved to his new friends. Another day?