Ee-I-Ee-I......Oh.

Jarrah had her six-month cleaning last Thursday, and I thought I would bribe her with the only thing that really matters, so I got her a heart-shaped Pez dispenser. (Yes, Readers, I'm just perverse like that, and also: chocolate Pez are nummy!) Things didn't go so well at that appointment, and she never did get her teeth cleaned, so I had to withhold the Pez and there was much wailing and gnashing of...you get the idea.

Anyway, we went back and tried again on Monday, and this time it was mostly a success. I handed over the promised Pez, only to find that my responsibilities in this arena were only just beginning--I was expected to fill the Pez dispenser because, evidently, Pez cannot be eaten out of the package. In fact, they are not even food at that point.

Readers, I cannot fill a Pez dispenser. I hazily recall the Pez of my youth as coming packaged in a neat foil wrapper encased in a colorful paper tube. This enabled me to unwrap the Pez like a loaf of sliced bread and slide them into the dispenser in one graceful move. In the past 30 years, however, candy technology (and our flaming planet) have intervened and where there were once two wrappers, there is now one. And try as I might, I lift the flap at one end, the whole thing rips down the center, and the individual Pez stampede away like a herd of gazelles. After picking them up one at a time, I attempt to wedge them--one at a time--into the cocked dispenser, only to find that when I reach for the second one, the cursed contraption somehow rejects the first and it comes flying back out into my lap.

Today Jarrah asked for Pez, and once again I ripped the package to shreds and all the Pez escaped. Wedging the dispenser open, elbows on my knees and leaning over in the faint position, I managed to get one inside before it grew weary and lay down, preventing me from inserting the second. This time, I was in no mood, especially since I also had a faceful of Jarrah's hair due to her "helping" by gluing her nose to the unit.

I tried about three times, cursing and yelling, and finally just flung the whole mess onto the ottoman and said, "Here. You deal with it. Or throw them away. I don't care. I'm done." I stomped into the office, and was happily deleting spam only a minute later when she came around the corner saying "Look!"

I looked. She was holding up the Pez dispenser, and I'll be a monkey's uncle if every single Pez wasn't lined up in perfect formation, ready to be dispensed as nature intended. I have to confess, I was sore amazed.

"Jarrah! Did you do that all by yourself? Are you a genius?"

"I am."

"Wow! I am so impressed. Your mommy couldn't do it. And your mommy had a cow when she tried, didn't she?"

"Uh-huh. Except a cow doesn't go 'AAAAAAHHHHHH! AAAAWWWWWGGGGG! AHHHHH! AAAAHGGHGGHGHGHGHGHGHAAAAA!' A cow goes 'Moo.'"