Spun Pudding

Daddy, George and Me.
I'm the one in the dress . . . and curlers.My Dad had made me a new toy.
It was a large - very large (about 5 inches in diameter) button on a string.
Intriguing.
You would thread a long, heavy string through the holes of the button and knot it. Then you would push the button to the centre and grip one of the two loops of the string in each hand.
Now you held something that resembled . . . a button on a string.
But then came the exciting part. If you wound up the button, you could pull the string out away from the button on each side and it would unwind and rewind the opposite way.
If you handled it just right, you could keep it going.
All day.
Which I did.
And it created a bit of a breeze if you got it going very fast.
Which I also did.
Enough background . . .
Mom had just made a large pot of pudding and set it on the cupboard to cool.
I was waiting, rather impatiently, for the temperature to drop below the boiling lava stage.
That was when I got my, to date, greatest idea.
My button could generate a breeze. I had felt it. It would cool the pudding and I could eat it that much faster!
I pushed a stool over to the cupboard and climbed up.
Carefully, I manoeuvred my button over the pudding and pulled the strings.
It worked!
For a moment.
Until I relaxed my hands on the ‘rewind’ or maybe the ‘unwind’ stroke.
Then, it dipped and skimmed the top of the scalding hot pudding straight into my face.
And my hair.
And the ceiling.
The covering properties of a button on a string have never been fully explored. I think they should be.
I believe Mom was cleaning up pudding from the most impossible places for months.
Long after I had healed.
P.S. I still like pudding. I just prefer it on the inside.
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Published on June 22, 2018 08:08
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On the Border

Diane Stringam Tolley
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