Most of my poetry for children is written from the point of view of the girl or boy the idea came from. It keeps my inner child alert and she doesn’t care how old this outer body gets, she still expects me to act her age.
One afternoon when they were 6, 8, and 10, I heard them giggling and having a good time. Mothers will agree, it’s always pleasant when the children are getting along.
I finished what I was busy with and I thought I would join the fun. I found all three of them in the bathroom with a very large mixing bowl and three wooden spoons. They were stirring something kinda-sorta green, soupy, lumpy and puffy and it smelled really strange.
I had to ask, “What IS that stuff?”
All three proudly replied, "Mommy, we invented Permagosh!" I listened as they told me step by step about their invention. I just couldn’t resist writing about it:
‘Permagosh’
Mommy's on the couch.
Daddy's in his chair.
We’re in a corner on our stools ...
yeah, they put us here
'cause we did somethin' naughty
we’re not supposed to do.
We invented Permagosh
mixing things with their shampoo.
First, a real long worm of toothpaste,
then a cloud of shaving cream,
then two glugs of mouthwash
('cause we love the color green).
We stirred it in a mixing bowl.
Boy, it smelled real good!
It was even looking better
than we ever thought it would.
Could it be a cure for cancer?
Take the itch from skeeter bites?
Or maybe heal a sunburn
when it hurts to sleep at night?
Two shakes of baby powder
made it way too hard to stir,
so we added mommy's perfume.
Permagosh smelled just like her.
Then the bowl tipped over.
Permagosh spilled on the floor
and when we turned around,
mom was standing by the door.
Now Mommy's on the couch.
Daddy's in his chair.
We’re in a corner on our stools ...
yeah, they put us here.
*
“What goes around comes around”, so I’m rarely surprised when one of my daughters calls to tell me something outlandish one of their children has done.
Haha this is brilliant! 😆
My cousin and I did the same thing, then put it in a red plastic container and shoved it all the way into the back of the fridge. My very meek Auntie thought it was something her husband concocted so she ignored it--for three months! Doreen and I had long since forgotten about it--but we remembered pretty quick when we overheard our mothers trying to figure out what the hell the rotten, moldy, rancid stuff could have possibly been. (It was a compilation of leftovers from the dinner table).