I have to preface this post with a detour down memory
lane.  Bear with me.

I have three brothers. 
It should be no surprise that, growing up the only girl, I was (and am)
well aware that boys are enamored of their penises.  Boys are pretty pleased about their bodies in
general (being such a bastion of entertainment value), but boy oh boy, their
penises are really the bomb.  It’s
practically scripture.

And lo, from the
Heavens came the body, and the body had manifold usefulness, such as the lougee
and the fart, and the armpits that can also fart, and gifted in infinite wisdom
unto the body was the mighty penis, that wiggles amusingly and fruitfully
pisses names into snow, and the Heavens looked down on the body and saw that it
was good.  And the Heavens farted, and
laughed.

Boys love their penises so much that sometimes it gets them
in trouble.  (And I say boys, not men,
because this is a post about boys.  Men
have a whole other kettle of fish to, um, fry when it comes to loving their
members.)  Take, for example, the time
that I was getting one of my younger brothers ready for bed.  He decided it would be so funny to thrust his wiener at me and make a lovely pissing sound
as if he was… yuk yuk yuk… actually peeing on me.  The only problem was that I was in the middle
of zipping up his one-piece pajamas when he put his wang in the path of
danger. 

Yes… he got zipped. 

(Don’t ask me why he wasn’t wearing underwear.  If you have hippie parents and ask an
eight-year-old to dress other children for bed, underwear may or may not show
up.)

Then there was another time when one of my brothers was at
that potty-trained yet still highly distractible age when he went to lift the
toilet seat to go to the bathroom.  Just…
he didn’t lift it quite high enough, and then he let it go a little too soon,
AND his head was turned so he didn’t notice the seat coming back down on his
little ding dong that was in the perfect position to get smacked.  

It happened way too fast for me to prevent anything, I swear. 

Then there is also that stage that a lot of boys go through
where they just decide to stop wearing underwear altogether.  My theory is this is all about giving the schlong its freedom.  It lives such a confined existence and it
deserves some swinging in the breeze.  However,
sometimes in real life your pants really can just rip off.  I’ve seen it happen.  (In front of a grocery store, no less.)

Anyway, I thought all this trouble with penii was universal
among males, but maybe it’s a family thing.

Chance is what I consider half potty trained.  He’ll go pee in the toilet but he’s still
doing stealth poops in his pants.  You
know what I’m talking about.  I figured,
since it’s summer and toasty warm, I’d just solve this by removing his pants
during his normal window of opportunity. 
I know he’ll go in the toilet rather than on the floor.  Except the other day I had to take my shower
during that same window.  I debated
putting his underpants back on but I talked myself into trying the time without
his pants.  Maybe I would get out of the
shower and be pleasantly surprised with a floater.  (What the hell has motherhood done to me?!)

Anyway.  As I got out
of the shower I heard a whimper through the baby monitor, but no calls of “Mom,
help”.  ??  Also unusually, Chance had not
once run up to the bathroom to harass me as I was getting clean.  Suspecting something was amiss I threw on my
bathrobe and went to his room. 

Chance has this kick ass walk-in closet that holds a ton of
his toys, where he often hangs out to play when he wants alone time (and to
poop in his pants).   I found him on the
floor of his closet, kind of contorted. 
He started whimpering again and immediately put out his hand and said,
“Go away, Mommy. Go away.”

“Chance honey,” I said, “If you need to go poop, just go and
use the potty.” 

“NOOOO!” he howled, but I picked him up and hauled him to
the bathroom.

I plopped him on the toilet and Chance burst into
tears.  “Chance, there’s no reason to get
so upset. It’s not a big deal…” I started to say…

…and then I looked down.

He had a chip clip stuck to the end of his penis.

(For those of you not familiar with the term “chip clip”,
it’s like a plastic clothespin that we use to hold closed a bag of chips.  Some of them can be quite the grippers.)

My poor son had (obviously) found a stray chip clip and
eventually clipped it to the obvious place. 
He was also obviously in a lot of pain and had no idea how to remedy his poor beloved penis.  Maybe he was even a little embarrassed, or
sensed that the entire situation was just wrong, I don’t know.  All he knew for sure was he didn’t want
anyone else touching it either.  Just in
case.

Of course, I reached down there quick as a snake and
unclipped his wanker before he could stop me. 
(I do want grandchildren someday.) 
Poor thing was all red and indented, but Chance wouldn’t let me examine
it.  The most I could do was put a cold
washcloth on it until it felt well enough for him to poke at it again.

But do you see what I mean? 
From fun plaything to disaster zone in the blink of an eye.  Trouble trouble trouble.              – the weirdgirl

Clothespins