While shopping in Target the other day our five-year-old grandson, Isaiah, told his grandmother and me he needed to go to the bathroom. I took him into the men’s room and waited while he finished his business in the stall. After washing his hands we went off to find my wife.
“Nana,” Isaiah told her earnestly, “I have diabetes.”
The British have the best description of the confused look Carolann and I gave each other. We were, as they say, “at sea.”
We had no earthly idea what he was talking about.
“What do you mean?” Carolann asked.
“I had to go potty real bad,” the five-year-old explained. “I have diabetes.”
My wife and I stared at each other blankly for another moment or two until, as the Brits also say, “the penny dropped.”
“You mean you have DIARRHEA?”
Carolann said this. I was too busy trying to choke back a guffaw that was leaking out my nose as barely stifled snorts.
“Yeah. Diarrhea.”
Then, in the spirit of Art Linkletter she issued a follow-up question. “Do you know what diarrhea is?”
“Yeah. That’s when it’s all flat.”
© 2008 by David L. Williams, all rights reserved