"Can't walk" with The Pirate

“I can’t walk,” said Jay.

“Come on, Jay.”  I said as we got out of the truck.  I trudged through a ridge of snow formed on Mary’s sidewalk. 

He replied, “I can’t walk.”

I looked back and he was doing okay, carrying his hat and gloves, wearing snowsuit and snow boots. He was following happily like a trailing puppy.

“You’re doing fine, just follow my foot prints.”

It was noon, time to take Jay to Mary Ann’s house.  We’d babysat this 3 y.o. foster child of Rusty’s all morning, so at noon we’d planned to take him next door.   Here in Indiana we’d just suffered negative degree weather with power outages, and there was lots of snow piled around.  Jay was struggling but managing all right.

Next thing I knew, Jay called, “Mar-ry.”

I said, “She can’t hear you, honey.  She’s inside her house.”

I just had to laugh ‘cause this little tyke was funny, he informed me with a nodding head,   “I vwery woud.” then raised his voice, A LOT, and YELLED, at the top of his lungs,  “MAR-REEEEE!”  

I chuckled.  Earlier he had me laughing, too.

“Pirates!” I heard Jay’s upset voice. 

“There’s a pirate,” he said adamantly to me.

“He has a sword.”  And he nodded his head for emphasize.

“I don’t like sword.”  It took me a minute to figure out what on earth he was talking about, when I did figure it out, I reassured him that yes, it was a pirate, but it was just a figurine, like some of his toys.

He had pointed to the top of the 6 foot tall cabinet in the bathroom where John’s 10-inch ceramic pirate stands proudly on a wooden peg leg, with a hand on his hip, a sword stabbed into the ground, and a black tricorn hat set crookedly to show his black patched eye.

“I don’t like pirates.”

I said soothingly, “But he’s a good pirate.”

Evidently  he didn’t think I was taking him seriously enough. He just wasn’t getting through to me. He left and went to the kitchen and told John all about it, “He’s a BAD pirate!”   “He a monster!  BAD!”

Well, really, you can’t dispute that.  I made him walk and Pirates make ya walk, too.  “Walk the plank, m’heartie!”  Someone’s always making you walk when you can’t.  “Monster! Bad!”