Cardboard Son

Edwina and Sluggo often wondered how their promising child could remain promising for so long without sliding into the category of a disappointing lout, as logic suggested.

 

Indeed, there was something unique about the way their son stood at the breakfast table for going on five years without so much as breathing as far as they could tell.

 

He still had that impish glint in his eye, that made them think of a cute little chick poking his head out of his mama’s nest and staring for the first time at the wide world of decapitating machinery encircling the coop.

 

They reckoned he was at least 55 years old now. But he looked just as dopey as he did 15 years ago. And pictures from his childhood show a boy indistinguishable from their present phenomenon.

 

‘Why, our boy there’s done less than even his grandpa Sudbury!” Sluggo said in pride and horror.

 

“He’s a …a…a…,” his Ma tried to fathom. “He’s a…a…Genius!” she hollered, for lack of a better thesaurus.

 

So it came as a big surprise when Sluggo finally managed to get the kitchen window open, and lo and behold their little boy blew over.

 

At first they thought he’d died of hunger. But when he fell over into a smattering of applesauce, Sluggo and Edwina were confused enough by this description to join in with the “smattering of applause” suggested by their dyslexia.

 

“Quite a lad we got there Edwina,” said Sluggo.

 

But then they started asking themselves questions:

 

1) Did they spend 55 years raising and educating a piece of cardboard?

 

2) Did we have a real son and send him to the recycling bin and put the cardboard in the high chair?

 

3) Did Edwina have an affair with a refrigerator box?

 

4) How come we’re still proud of our cardboard son?

 

 

 

– Story Cardboard Son reproduced courtesy of Jeffry H. Shampnois

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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