We are such strange beings, us parental units. Things we would never have done in our former lives — that we would have turned up our noses and snorted at — we now do freely. Things that seem so outlandish, ridiculous, and frankly, disgusting. Take for instance the other day at pre-school as we dropped my two-year-old daughter off. I was in the passenger seat of the car giving her a kiss goodbye. My wife was carrying her and I noticed a little something in the little girl’s nostril. It was a “UNO” — an unidentified nasal object. I couldn’t let her go into school like that, and after failing myself to extract it, my wife — the old pro — went in for the kill, sans tissue. (We were already late and unprepared for duty such as this.) “Now what do I do with it?” she asked, stumped. Then, even shocking myself, I said, “Here, give it to me. I’ll figure something out.” My wife thanked me and trudged off with child, leaving me with the UNO. “Now what do I do with it?” I thought. But that’s the life of a parent. Never in my wildest imagination — not in some crazed hallucinatory delirium brought on by spoiled fruit or bad fish — could I ever have pictured this: me sitting in a car staring at a “boogie” on the end of my finger. I couldn’t even have ever imagined myself being so selfless, so thoughtful, and shoot, … Continue reading ‘UNOs’ and the Things a Parent Will Do