Doctor's Way vs. Mom's Way

For Rachel's birthday this year, my house received the gift of a medium-sized Foosball-like hockey table. Electronic (read "noise")! The neighborhood kids have all joined in making it a worthwhile present. But (and isn't there always a "but")...

The hockey sticks come off the little players. The players themselves are hard to pop off but those sticks...well, they are just perfect for grubby little toddler hands to yank off. Why would a grubby little toddler want to do such a thing? Because he can.

"Uh oh, Ma-ee." Paul pointed to the slot where he had dropped/pushed/shoved the hockey stick into the table. I could see the stick. I grabbed the tweezers but alas, the slot was too skinny. Not too skinny for the hockey stick though. Groaning, I yanked all the other hockey sticks off the little men and put them up high. And figured I'd get to it when I had several hours to invest in either taking the table apart or turning it upside down and shaking that dern stick out.

A week or so later, Uncle AJ came to pick up his son, Matt, from a playdate at our house. I was forced to explain why the little men had no sticks and AJ's eyes lit up with excitement. "I can get the stick out." He's an almost-done medical student and apparently the opportunity to perform surgery on anything gets his adrenalin pumping. "I need tweezers, a steak knife, a butter knife and some scissors." Aye, aye, captain.

Ten minutes later (with 2 butter knives), he had retrieved the wayward hockey stick. And man, was he proud of his surgical skills. I was impressed myself and offered him all sorts of praise (although to be honest, I was mostly happy that I didn't have to do the job).

This past weekend, I was expecting a slew of boys to invade my house so I put all the stinkin' sticks back on the players so the kids would have something to do. And then I foolishly turned my back on Paul and his partner in neighborhood crime, Spencer, as they systematically pulled them off and shoved them into the table (I will say, it was probably Paul who showed Spencer this awesome trick).

Dern kids. And no medical student around.

I tried the two-butter-knife-method. Kind of like chopsticks only trickier. Couldn't do it. Cursed inwardly at the people who make these things and the people who put them in my house. And then the lightbulb came on.

I got out my hot glue gun and a butter knife. And I retrieved every single hockey stick in under 5 minutes. A dab of glue, a quick poke at the hockey stick, a gentle guidance through the slot. Bingo. Mom's way.

And that's what separates us non-doctors from the real doctors - a glue gun to retrieve objects that need to be removed from something in a rather delicate manner.