Strange Attachments

Nickels has this uncanny ability to bond. He bonds with people and will bring them up in conversation, even those he hasn't seen for weeks or months at a time.

He bonds with animals. The night Tex went missing while my Mom was sick, that child slept on the hardwood floor, by the drafty front door, all night long, waiting for Tex to come home*.

But, most interestingly, he bonds with things. And this strange obsession led to the oddest series of events Mike and I will never forget.

It all occurred when Nickels was about five and still in Preschool, where dismissal time was in the mid-afternoon.

Mike had recently purchased some new office furniture and was ready to dump the old at the store near the Preschool, so he accompanied me to pick-up with the back of the SUV full of office goodies.

We picked both happy-to-see-us boys up, drove about one minute down the street, lifted the back gate, dumped everything out in about three minutes flat, accepted our tax receipt, and started to drive away. That's when we heard this from the middle seats:

SNIFF.

"Nickels? What's wrong honey?" Never, in all the time he had been in Preschool, had he cried after pick-up. This was ODD.

SOMETHING UNINTERPRETABLE. SNIFF.

Now I'm starting to get worried. But, like a really good joke, the punchline was about to spill forth with comedic genius. Problem was, this wasn't a joke....

"Meeeeeee. SNIFF. And that chair. SNIFF. We had some good times. SNIFF. Spinning around." With every sniff came an intake of air that was so violent that his shoulders would rise up and down, as if he were strapped into a seat on the "Pukemaker 2019" roller coaster that was heading into the final, ultra-whiplash-inducing turn.

I felt like Rod Serling had taken over the driver's seat and was taunting me: "There is a fifth dimension, beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call The Twilight Zone."

NO WAY! My five-year-old son is losing his mind over a dumb, faux-leather, broken-down, CHAIR?

Problem was, Nickels was DEAD SERIOUS. He's now crying full force.

And, me? I am facing Mike (mistake), my head pushed so far into the headrest that Nickels can't see me, and I am laughing so hard that my body is convulsing. I have no earthly idea how Mike is driving at this point because he, too, is convulsing, his cheeks stained with tears of laughter.

You would have thought Nickels and the chair had been happily engaged and recently broken up. And he chose this car ride to come to terms with it.

Fast forward to just a couple weeks ago; bulk trash was scheduled to come by our house. I had actually planned ahead for the event, cleaned out the garage, scoured the backyard for bulky items that were broken, no longer useful, or just plain unnecessary. Everything went into a huge pile at the front of the house.

Later that day, the entire Nowell crew got in the SUV and Nickels started bemoaning the fact that the Target-purchased-four-year-old-red-faded-to-pink-two-legs-broken folding chairs we used to take to the kid's sporting events were prominently displayed on top of the pile.

These things were so worthless that nobody had taken them. In fact, a gentleman picked up five ginormous bags of leaves** gathered from our yard and threw them in the back of his beat-up pick-up. The chairs, though? Apparently too butt-ugly and broken to even touch.

But, Nickels? Practically pulled a stunt of Hollywood proportions trying to nose dive out of the car, onto the pile, to save his precious chairs***.

I'll never understand his obsession with chairs, of all things. But, I am grateful that it isn't something more difficult to find or too expensive to purchase or just downright odd to own.

Because if that child goes on a rampage and decides dead animal heads are in style, starts combing the bulk trash piles for them, and tries to use any he finds to decorate his room?

He'll need to find a new room to occupy.


*Tex, on the other hand, had found the home to beat all homes. He was cozy in someone else's bed, which is a no-no in this house. I'm not sure for the word for a cheating dog, but it described him that night.

**Made me scratch my head, too. Composting was my best guess.

***If it had been 2011, I would have lost $1 for yelling at him about "staying in the car when it is moving."