At my church, there is a time in the service set aside for the grade school age children to come up to the front, sit on the stairs, and listen to a little lesson. My dad presents some random token or another and ties in some grand lesson about God, our relationships with God, or how to be good people. One of my personal favorites involves a jar, walnuts, and rice (but that is for another time). This particular nugget is about toothpaste. Back in the day, toothpaste came in these heavy metal tubes. Once you squeezed the toothpaste out, there was no way to get it back in – this tied into a lesson about thinking before acting or something like that.
So, there is my dad holding a paper plate with gobs of minty fresh white toothpaste covering the surface. He could have built a mighty gingerbread fortress if he had only had the graham crackers. Anyways, he starts to show us kids, I must have been 4 years old, how he just couldn’t get the toothpaste back into the tube. He was talking about consequences and “for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction” <-- maybe that wasn’t him.
Was I learning while my dad did this elaborate messy show? No, I was telling the entire congregation that I hadn’t unpacked my toothbrush yet…
We had moved in 2 weeks before… (chuckles and stifled laughter followed as people tried to be polite but were struggling with their amusement)
Needless to say, my mom was not amused, my toothbrush was found, and my dad has not been subjected to this type of confession from any other present or future youth since toothpaste manufacturers switched to plastic tubes (you can put the toothpaste back now), thankfully. And I guess if I can recall the lesson this much later, it must have stuck with me anyway. :)
