Bling

My kid loves the bling. That's what he calls the decorative bands he wears around his wrist.

I say "decorative" because technically, only some of the bands are true bracelets. Some are special Halloween Silly Bandz, one is a strand of glowsticks he got on Halloween, and one, to my dismay, is something he should not be wearing at all.

"What is that?" I asked, pointing at the gray band he wore.

Mark immediately reversed the band so I couldn't read it. "It keeps flipping over," he said.

"That's not what I asked," I said. "I asked what is it? Where did you get it?"

It wasn't the look of the band that alarmed me. It was the saying on it: "Desperate."

He smiled, trying to charm his way out of it (it works on everybody else in the world except me). "Ummmmm..."

And then it hit me. I knew exactly where he'd gotten it, and exactly what it was.

"Is that one of my beer bottle labels?" I asked, referring to a gift my friend Vic had given me. They were playful rubbery bands with silly sayings on them, like "Egomaniac" or "Snob." You slip them around your beer bottle, to keep track of which bottle's yours--kinda like those cutesy wine glass markers.

Mark smiled sheepishly at me, and ran a protective hand across his bracelet. He was going to fight to keep it. "Fine," I said. "You can keep it, since you don't mind people knowing you're desperate. But don't take any of the other ones!"

He smiled triumphantly. And I wiped the sweat from my brow, grateful he hadn't chosen any of the racier bracelets, like this one:



Because I really don't need a call from the school asking me to explain why my 10-year-old son's wearing that one.