How sharper than a serpent's tooth . . .

Yesterday at Lunch Buddies, my kindergarten buddy said, "My friends would like us to play with them." So instead of eating lunch first and drawing afterwards, we played "Scary Monster." In this game, which we have played before, I am the scary monster (or the grizzly bear) and try to catch the various bats and werewolves who attack from all angles on the playground equipment. My little pink-and-white, ruffledy-puffledy buddy informed me, "I'm the mom werewolf." In that capacity she gets to make up the rules.

The little folks got all wound up, and I had kids leaping onto my back, grabbing my arms, and tugging at my jacket. I had to remonstrate with a couple kids for head-butts. There was also a little fellow on his tummy with his hands around my ankle; I dragged him around for a bit.

In the midst of the scrum, however, I felt a sharp pain in my calf. "Hey!" I yelled. "Who's biting?" I looked down, and two werewolves had their mouths full of my pant legs. "No biting!" I said. The lunch cop came over and said that my buddy had to go to the nurse's office to get her blood sugar checked, and the game was over.

After lunch I detoured to the house to inspect my calf. My jeans weren't torn, but when I examined my leg, I found that although the werewolf didn't break the skin, but he did pinch a dandy blood blister into my calf. I cleaned it up with alcohol, put antibiotic ointment on it, and covered it with a Band-Aid. I'm watching it closely. And I'm going to keep my eye on those werewolves and bats.