The Date

Some time ago, my mum was given a gag gift. Calum discovered it last week while she was cleaning out a closet.

"Grow a date," he read, examining the little red plastic man in the package. "What's this?"

My mum explained that if you put the little man into water, it would grow really big. Calum was eager to try it and so we got a nice big bowl and immersed The Date.

Calum was very excited to watch the growth of The Date. Several times that day, he'd drag a stool over to the counter and look into the bowl, announcing "I'm going to see how big The Date is now." Slowly, The Date got bigger, and became identifiable as a little, blobby, vaguely man-shaped Date. This was very exciting. "Good morning Gramma!" Calum said when he got up the next morning, bypassing his usual hugs to rush into the kitchen. "I'm just going to check on that Date." During his bedtime phone call to Jeff that evening, Calum reported earnestly, "I'm growing a Date." My mum and I were in stitches listening to him talk about The Date while his puzzled father tried to figure out what this was all about.

Eventually, we decided that The Date had grown to his full size; alas, only a few inches long. Not a very big Date. We removed it from the water and put it on a paper towel. The Date, by this point, was a little worse for wear; its time in the water had rendered it somewhat slimy, and it began to shrink, expelling water as it did so. Within a day or two, The Date had become far less interesting, and Calum was ready to move on to a new interest.