The Gift of the Magi
Chris fiddled with the mouse trap, setting it and snapping it with a fork. Dumb mice. Chris was faster than that. He snapped it again, this time trying to pull the fork out in time for it not to get caught. The tip of it remained under the wire. Only because the fork was so long though. He adjusted his grip closer to the tip of the fork, to pull it out more quickly. Nope, still caught. Forget the fork. If it was just him, just his finger, he could do it quickly enough. It was just a pinky. Or was this like the time he wanted to see what Rusty’s invisible fence collar felt like? No. He would be fast enough.
Actually, no he wouldn’t be. And it was not like the time he wanted to see what his dog’s invisible fence. It hurt a lot more than that. Oh man did it hurt. It hurt more than last year when he wanted to know what it was like to punch someone in the face so he and Kyle did the punch exchange. Chris had only been 8 and Kyle was a full three years older than him, and those three years, it turned out, made a lot of difference when it came to punching ability. As did the years of Tae Kwon Do training that Kyle had behind his literal and metaphorical belt.
“Retard.”
“Shut up, I did it on purpose.” He blinked to stop his eyes from watering.
“Sure you did. Just like yesterday when you ‘purposely’ got chili powder in your eye.”
“I was doing an experiment! To see if spices have the same effect on the eye as they do on the mouth. That’s why I put nutmeg in my other eye.”
“No, you just put nutmeg in your other eye because you’re retarded. And you though it might convince me that’s why you got chili powder in your eye in the first place.”
“I’m doing it with all the spices in the spice rack. I just had to take tonight off because my eye is still swollen from the chili powder, so it wouldn’t be a good experiment.”
Chris made a mental note to throw away anything that looked spicy in the outside trash where Kyle wouldn’t find it.
“Ok, Einstein, then why exactly did you put your finger in a mousetrap.”
Why would he put his finger in a mousetrap? It was, technically another experiment, to see if he was faster than a mouse, or faster than hand plus fork. But that wasn’t the real reason. No, the real reason was better than that. Kyle wouldn’t get the real reason.
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“Sure I would. It’s because you’re retarded.”
“Did you know that mice have more nerve endings in their tales than we do in our entire bodies?”
“Ah, yes, that explains why you put your finger in a mousetrap.”
“It’s like the time I put on Rusty’s invisible fence collar.”
“I know. You did that because you’re retarded.”
“No, I did it out of humanitarian concerns. I am going to keep this on my finger for 30 hours, which is the average time it takes a mouse to die once it has been trapped.”
“Don’t do that. The tip of your finger will fall off.”
“We need to be aware of how we treat animals.”
“Seriously, your finger WILL fall off.”
“If it does, you can have it for your Christmas.”
That year for Christmas Kyle got a paintball gun, a Packers jersey, a stocking with toothpaste, dental floss, liquorice, candy cigars, a gift certificate to Amazon.com and a pinkie tip. Chris, among other things, go a bear trap. He didn’t think it was very funny.
