Chasin' Jackie

There goes Jackie, scamperin’ by in his pamper.  All he got on is that pamper.  He's a pamper scamper, I say, and he smell to pee yew, too, and that pamper is fresh new.  "Slow down, Jackie," I say. "Grampa got to change you."  I yells at him, he scamperin' out the room, "Hey you! You got poop in the stoop!"

Jackie yell from the kitchen, “Poop in the stoop! Poop in the stoop!" And he want to play chase like every time when he carryin' around a cannonball in his butt.  So I rouse me up off the couch and I yell like I always do, "I’m going to catch you, Jackie, and I's going to dump you in the stinky, stinky city dump!'" and he giggling and he running and hiding from me when I does this.

I say, "Grampa gonna get you, Jackie!" and I open the hallway door and I'm teasing him with, "Now where did that smelly child go? Is he behind this door? Hmmm. No, he ain't. Maybe is he behind this other door? No, he ain't there neither. Hmmm. I wonder where that child could go."

I holler, "Jackie! You got poop in the stoop?  Tell me now, you got a pipe in the dipe? I know you does. Where is that smelly boy who got, what is it now, coal in the hole?"

And Jackie busts out from behind them coats in the closet and he wiggles through my legs, and he's screamin', "You can't catch me, Grampa!” And he does smell, like I say, oh my goodness. There ain't no doubt about it!

And I yells the words he know I will say: "You got poop in the stoop! Here I come! You got a pipe in the dipe? Here I come! You got coal in the hole! Here I come!"

And Jackie screams all gleeful and runs away and goes hiding again in the parlor. I follow and sees him standing still but a-giggling behind a curtain, and his little feet sticking out. He whispers to hisself, “coal in the hole," and giggles again.

I am playing the game, and I say slow and gruff in my low voice like a old troll, "Jackie, you is rank in the flank."

Jackie now is wild with a scream and busts out from behind there and hugs onto my leg, gazing up all sweet. “Grampa, you ain't a monster!"

I know he a bit afraid, but I say I definitely is one, a old troll, and I hoist Jackie over my shoulder, and I say he smell horrible like a rotten sack of garbage, and I’m a gonna dump him in the city dump or change that pamper come hell or high water.  I'm a monster who eats a child who can't stay smelling good, and I carry Jackie up the steps. And I stop on each step and growl low and hungry.

Just turned three and Jackie still going round in that pamper. His momma tell me he won't quit em, cause Jackie want to play the poop rhymes and I should stop it. I suppose I should stop it.

But when we come at the top, Jackie go, “Now say all of ‘em, Grampa. Like you do.”

So I act all bogged down like I is carrying a sack of rocks, and huffin' and puffin', and down the hall I totter with Jackie over my shoulder, and I say each one like he want me to:

"Jackie, you is one stinky child, gone stinky all the way to the pee-yew! Oooo-weee! You must got poop in the stoop!

Jackie say, "No, I ain't!"

"You got crap in you lap?"

"No, I ain't!"

"You got a pipe in the dipe?"

"No, I ain't!"

"You got stink in the pink?"

"No, I ain't!"

"You got shit in the pit?"

"No, I ain't!"

"You got a smell in the dell?"

"No, I ain't!"

"You got rank in the flank?"

"No, I ain't!"

"You got coal in the hole?"

"No, I ain't!"

"You got a stench in the trench?"

"No, I ain't!"

"You got a pack in the crack?"

"No, I ain't!"

"You got a turd in the snerd?"

"No, I ain't!"

"You got a lump in the rump?"

"No, I ain't!"

"You got a clog in the bog?"

"No, I ain't! I ain't! I ain't! I ain't!"

And Jackie, as I sets him down to change, goes from a little voice to his hollered finish-it joke like he always do: “No, Grampa! I gots me a great... big...  cannonball!” Course, when he holler cannonball we both laugh, me and my little Jackie, like we always do.

Except this time when I say, "A cannonball, you sure does, Jackie," Jackie say back at me all serious, "A supersaurus cannonball, Grampa!"

Now where did Jackie get that? Where did he get that name, supersaurus cannonball?" What is that? I ain't teached him that. That Jackie! Supersaurus cannonball outta the mouth of that child.  




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