Well, It Ain't Jesus on a Pancake

You will never in a million years believe what happened to me at
school today. No, I didn't get hit with a Puffs With Aloe box, or
accused of belching, or asked if I knew how to color my roots,
or punched by Mum, or invited to eat a muffin with the letter 'K'
on it, or bumped from my parking spot by a usurper. That is
common, everyday stuff in the life of Hillbilly Mom. No...this was
something BIG!

I might have mentioned that there is one class I allow to have treats.
These are treats that I bring from my pantry. Snacks that my kids
won't eat anymore. Hey! To high school boys, that IS considered
a treat! Today I brought some Gummi Bears that were left over
from the fundraiser last fall. I warned the kids, "These are from
last October. They may not be any good." They replied, in the
manner of starving high school boys at 9:10 a.m., "Gummi Bears
never go bad." Kid Senior opened the bag and parceled them
out. They were stuck together, so they broke off clusters of
Gummi goodness.

Kid Senior said, "They're good, but they would be even better if
we could warm them in your microwave." This kid has a fixation
with my microwave. He wants to put everything in there: cookies,
Pop Tarts, honeybuns. I told him, "Welllllll....I'll get you a plate,
but you can't leave them in for long." He only put his in, the rest
of the class having more sense. He only had them in there about
10 seconds. They looked all right when he took them out. Then
he tried to eat one. It stretched out like a piece of gum stuck to
your shoe as you walk across a blacktop parking lot in August.
"Maybe I left them in a little too long," he said. He sat down with
his paper plate.

I was reading the first book of the Dive series by Gordon Korman.
The kids did work, ate Gummis, and listened. They are good
multitaskers. Why, some of them can even whine, put Big Red
wrappers on their heads, belch, and tilt their chairs back in one
smooth motion. Anyhoo, I noticed over the top of the book that
Kid Senior had stopped consuming the Gummis.

"I can't eat these."
"Are they bad? Throw them away."
"No. I can't eat them. It's Mary, praying."
"What?"
"Look at it."

He brought up the paper plate with melted Gummi Bears. I swear,
it was an image of the Virgin Mary, holding Baby Jesus! I saw it
right off. Some kids could tell, some kids couldn't.

"Hey! We can sell it on eBay!"
"That is not leaving my room! I do not want everybody knowing
that I fed you old Gummi Bears."
"C'mon. I'll split the money with you."
"No."
"Can I take a picture of it?"
"That would be good...IF you had a camera."
"I can take it with my cell phone."
"No. You are not even supposed to have a cell phone at school.
I can't let you get it out to take a picture. Then people would know
that I fed you Gummi Bears AND disregarded the cell phone rule."
"C'mon. Nobody'll believe we had Praying Mary in Gummi Bears."
"Leave it here, and I'll bring my kid's camera Monday to take a
picture. It uses floppies. We can load the picture on my computer."


Kid Senior looked at the image. I went back to reading. He picked
at it for a minute. "That's only her knees. I can eat that part." He
ate about half of Mary, and then threw her in the wastebasket.
"Can I go wash Mary off my hands?"

"OK. But don't be gone long."

I can't believe he ate her. I really wanted a picture for my blog, but
I couldn't let him use that phone. I'm all for stretching and bending
and contorting the rules every which way IF it's not going to come
back and bite me in the butt. And I was afraid Mary would.

Here's a sketch I made of the pose Mary was in. I am not a religious
person, but I can recognize Mary holding Baby Jesus when she bites
me in the butt.




















I know you don't believe me. She looked just like that, only bumpy
and colorful, because she was made of melted Gummi Bears, you
know, on a white paper plate. She had on a headscarfy hood thingie,
and Baby Jesus was wrapped up in a blanket. I could not make out
any facial features on either of them. I'm not such a good artist, so
my rendering does not do them justice. I am not a religious person.
Perhaps this would have made a bigger impact on me if I was.
Maybe it's because I have been so concerned with the world going
to h*ll in a handbasket lately. It was just odd. I can only tell you
what I saw.

But I still don't believe the Jesus on a pancake from a couple
weeks ago. It looked like they stamped him on, or had etched their
pan to make him. And he has a lazy eye.

So anyhoo, you don't have to believe me. I know what I saw. I'm
not exactly Homer Simpson grabbing the Gummi Venus De Milo
off the butt of the babysitter, now am I? I have nothing to gain by
making this up. But it was a very odd happening in the life of
Hillbilly Mom.