Here's my eleven year old hiding what must be disaster to a recent middle school student newly aware that hair actually does look better brushed and that there just might possibly be more to clothing than comfort. She looks happy in the picture, but that's actually deceiving. Yes, she was pleased that I didn't get a picture of her popper nose, but actually embarrassed and, I believe, insulted that her old friend the popper would do this to her.
If you are unfamiliar to poppers, let me introduce this cheap form of entertainment. I first saw one when my son brought one home from art class as a good behavior prize. "Really?" I asked, "That's a prize?" Looked like a broken or lost piece of something or another to me.
But as it turned out, those hours of fun that toy commercials talk about are contained not in expensive toys with buttons galore, but these little half ball shaped pieces of plastic. They push it down like a suction cup on a hard surface, and it pops back up. (picture above). They are especially fun to stick on your nose, apparently. But not as fun when you go to your new brand new middle school the next morning with a big, purple bruise across the bridge of your nose.