Stuck

I was dropping John off at school this morning. His cough medicine didn't make it home last night, so I'd just given him a dose as soon as we got to school. I was rinsing out the little medicine-syringe thing when I turned around.

A little girl was stuck.

We were in the baby room, sure, but the bigger kids wander in and out regularly. She was probably two or three years old. She was standing next to a crib with a mobile attached to the side. The mobile was screwed on to the side of the crib using a big plastic nut-and-bolt type thing. The bolt was hollow in the center. She'd stuck her finger in the bolt and gotten stuck. All the workers were busy.

I walked over to the little girl.

"You stuck?"

She nodded. I took her hand and pulled it gently. Wow. Her finger was really jammed in there. She gave me the big-eyes.

"Don't worry," I told her, "I'll take care of it."

I went back to the sink. I got some hand soap and mixed it up in my palm with water. Then I took the medicine syringe and sucked some of the soapy water into it. I walked back over to the little girl and applied the soapy water around her stuck finger, grease-gun style.

Her finger slid out. She ran off and hid.