The Handcuffs

Last week Kimball went to play at his friend’s house. He returned pleased to display a pair of handcuffs belonging to his friend. Korosh got them at a fair in California and let Kimball borrow them for the weekend. Instantly, the attention of the entire household was fixed on the wonders of these amazing metal objects. Even I was drawn in noting that I had never seen play handcuffs which were not plastic. Soon everyone and everything was temporality attached to something else (a chair, a table leg, their brother) at the mercy of a little key. Unfortunately, making something out of metal does not guarantee quality and the locking mechanism was very temperamental. First John was stuck, then James. A fork was a better tool for opening them up than the keys, and that required great effort. Of course this only intrigued the kids more and most of the boys ended up prisoners for long periods of time. They were constantly interrupting General Conference with, “Dad would you unlock me?” But the worst part was Saturday morning, John and I got up early to pick up a few things at Safeway. When we returned we found Katie’s leg locked up to a bar of her crib. She is an amazingly placid girl and was merely sitting there sucking her fingers staring at James, the perpetrator who was trying to release her from her prison. Actually it was pretty funny to see, but I had to lecture him about, what if the house would have caught on fire! (Wish I would have taken a picture)

The fate of the handcuffs regrettably, is they finally gave up and fell apart. Kimball paid his friend, and I am looking for the last piece to see if I can repair them. Please, don’t lone anything to my children.