Boys do things differently

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Boys can be gross little critters.

They don’t necessarily mean to be, it’s just the nature of possessing testosterone without the maturity to wield it.

Testosterone is kind of like the Force. Once you learn how to control it, it can be of great benefit, but if it is unchecked, it leads to the dark side, and the dark side usually involves something that will gross out mom and dad.

Mind you, when boys grow up, testosterone can still lead to some uncouth situations. I highly doubt it was a refined woman who invented the globally popular Pull my finger gag.

Not too long ago, I was talking to a lady who was appalled by the actions of some of the young boys in her neighbourhood. The lads were around 10 years old and full of vinegar and puppy dog tails or what ever else they are supposed to be made of.

It would seem these future leaders of our nation decided it would be more fun to pee in their water guns and squirt each other than to just fill them with boring old water.

When she told me and another father, I had to chuckle.

They looked at me like I was demented.

“You both only have girls, don’t you?”

They did, and were thus unfamiliar with the minds of little men. I doubt a girl would ever think of doing such a thing.

I know it is disgusting and I am certainly not endorsing it, but it is something little boys do, and parents who only have girls simply do not understand.

Most girls are all cute and sweet, while boys are more like chimpanzees on a sugar high.

I am sure boys are where the term ‘perpetual motion’ came from, because it seems little boys never stop moving, doing things or looking for new adventures, which translates into getting in to trouble.

They don’t necessarily mean to get in trouble, it just kind of happens.

One day, my oldest son was looking at this small, black thing he took out of his pocket.

I assumed it was a rock or something and I asked what he had.

“It’s a bird’s stomach,” was his matter-of-fact reply.

I stopped dead in my tracks and contemplated his response.

“A what?” was my somewhat horrified reaction.

“I also have what I think is a heart and a lung.”

My mind raced at the information I was hearing.

“OK, calm down. There are plenty of good psychiatrists in town. That’s it, all he needs is a little assistance. He will be fine. All little boys carry animal parts in their pocket – right?”

My next concern was how he came into possession of said body parts.

He explained that he had found a dead bird behind the shed and decided to take it apart to see what was in it.

He always enjoyed taking things apart which, until that moment in time, I thought was a good thing. He was expanding his knowledge, exploring how things worked – now it was just a one-way ticket to Barf City.

He did not have any surgical tools or even a pocketknife, so he pulled it apart with his fingers.

I would just like to say – eeeeeeeewww. Now, that is disgusting.

He did not know it was gross, he was just a curious seven year old with no concern for minor details like germs, bacteria, malaria or the plague.

Again, I doubt most girls would ever do that.

While girls are having imaginary tea parties, Junior was performing a do-it-yourself autopsy.

“Go in the house and wash your hands – a lot. Use the entire bar of soap and don’t touch anything on the way in. Just keep your hands in the air. Wait, let me open the door and turn on the taps.

No! Don’t touch me. No! Don’t touch the cat either.”

“Can I keep the stomach?”

“Noooooo.”

Boys just do things differently.

This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.