Taking it to the limit

I never could have guessed this mothering challenge would have been laid at my door step, but a Mom's gotta go the distance.  This time I had to take it to the limit by dumpster diving for mexicanjumpingbain's last vestiges of little boyhood: his silky shorts.

The Silky Shorts.  The only thing he ever attached to. He called them Thilky Thorts before speech therapy corrected his signature lisp.  Other kids have blankies or na-nas or passies or stuffed giraffes, but MJB latched on this unconventional item.  They are ragged green and white swimming trunks he conned off his older cousin when he was just three.  He wore them til the seams gave out and now all that holds them together is a sturdy waistband.  He may technically be too old and too tough for a blankie, but Silky Shorts are most definitely still in his bedtime game.  

I didn't know how attached to them he still is until this week.  We endured a rampant stomach virus and his turn was so virulent I decided to trash his top bunk sheet.  There was no way I could gag my way through cleaning it up and sheets are much cheaper than my sanity.  Never thought a thing about it, except to tease him that he got the prize for yuckiest stomach virus cleanup experience ever.  

A few nights after he'd recovered he said he couldn't find his Silky Shorts.  He had looked everywhere; I crawled around, looked under the bed...and then it hit me.  He'd been sleeping with them the night he channeled Mount Vesuvius.  I had stare into his innocent crystal blue eyes and told him how sorry I was, that they must have been in the sheet I threw away.  He took it pretty well, I thought.  I kissed him and offered to find him something else, but he'd never endure a substitute.  He's been a dedicated Silky Shorts guy from his first encounter. 

We took a short day trip together yesterday when a cloud of sadness and despair seemed to come over him all of the sudden.  I parked the car and asked him what was wrong.  He was moving his forefinger together with his thumb.  Like he was trying to remember what his Silky Shorts felt like.  That made me a little sad, but he had huge tears brimming his eyes when he said, I just really miss my Silky Shorts.  He didn't exactly cry, but him working so hard not to let those tears spill is what made me take my mothering game to a new limit.  

Before I could stop myself I blurted out: how about we go through the garbage and see if we can find them once we get home?  I wasn't sure if the garbage man had already come, but told him we could scrounge through the trash, hoping he would agree it would be too revolting, but he was eager to high tail it home.

This wasn't my first Dumpster dive, so after church we put on dirty clothes and rubber gloves and took an extra empty garbage bag to begin the search.  My heart sank as I peered threw opaque white plastic and couldn't recognize a thing that looked like a wadded up sheet.  Undaunted, he waited as I cut the bulging bag open, directed me to hold the resevoir bag and we boldly began digging through half a week's worth of garbage.  Of course it wasn't on top with the wadded up paper towels, tissue paper and contents of the dust bin.  I can, however vouch for the incredible expansion ability of those Glad bags.  You really can force a lot into their flexibility.   We agreed to go all the way to the bottom, and that's when we saw it.  The (no longer) white sheet ball.  Still not sure the Silky Shorts would be in it, I told him to stand back since this par was sure to be disgusting.  With as much dexterity as my mis-matched rubber gloves would allow, I unfurled that sheet and pulled out the highly contaminated Silky Shorts.  

Digging through wet garbage and extracting the Shorts was my limit.  He had to carry them into the laundry room.  Where they are now soaking in SCOE 10x, which is guaranteed to remove any remnants of my previous limit: vomit. 

Here's his version:

What would you take it to the limit for?

Lib