The Streak

H pulled his pants down at the preschool pot luck yesterday. It was like a foreign film - full frontal nudity. Thankfully his scene-stealing moment came after the candle ceremony so the other parents had finished shooting home movies.
I have this problem that, were I to write in to advice columnists, my letter would certainly be labeled a hoax.
Dear Abby,
My six-year old is reading too much in bed. He can read an entire Boxcar Children Mystery in one night. Tonight's is the mystery of the hidden beach. How do I get him to stop and go to bed?
Frustrated Parent
Ridiculous isn't it? What parent wouldn't want their kid to read in bed? The parent who is sick of dealing with an over-tired six year old who is short tempered with his four-year-old brother the next day - that's who.
In addition to his own reading, we've been reading The Hobbit together. It's been a long time. I'd forgotten most of the story. I did find it funny in the chapter where the group encounters the trolls, that not only are the trolls mean and nasty, they talk with a cockney accent.
Hopefully I won't cry at the end when (spoiler!) Thorin dies like I did in Charlotte's Web. I'll probably be able to keep it together. I remember being kind of choked up at the end of The Return of the King, but that was disappointment that the story was ending, not sadness over one particular character.
H and I have been reading Billy and Blaze; books I remember from when I was a kid. I even remember what shelves the Billy and Blaze books were kept on at the East Falmouth Library - back right corner, up high, in the A's, for C.W. Anderson. I remember the beautiful drawings more than the plot of the stories. In rereading them I see why. The stories aren't all that compelling despite their gorgeous illustrations. Worse than that, Billy and Blaze, the first book, is a parent's worst nightmare.
Who wants to read their kid a story about a child who actually gets a pony for his birthday?

song: The Streak • artist: Ray Stevens