Kids do stupid things. The dumbest moments of childhood seem to be when a boy doesn’t know any better, and just wants to see what happens. This is the beauty of children, and their charm. It is also the leading cause of high blood pressure, premature baldness, Valium dependancy, global warming, and Menudo.
Thankfully, Ian’s never done anything so obvious as open an emergency exit or pull a fire alarm. He once broke a porcelain sheep figurine in Scotland, but I blame the manufacturer for making it look like it could bounce. That, my wallet (and heart) can handle.
But what if it’d been a $1.5M sheep?
A 12-year-old visitor to the Detroit Institute of Arts stuck a wad of gum to a $1.5 million painting, leaving a stain the size of a quarter, officials say….he took a piece of Wrigley’s Extra Polar Ice gum out of his mouth and stuck it on Helen Frankenthaler’s “The Bay,” an abstract painting from 1963.
How, exactly, does one ‘discipline’ one’s child in such a case? Assuming the defibrillator works, of course.
(Thanks, Jason!)
[Note to self: no chewing gum in art museums. Or history museums. Or…you know what, Ian can just do without.]