Tales from Waffle House

Brannon and I had a date this morning at Waffle House. We took Taylor to school first so just Brannon and I could go. He kept asking if Taylor could come but I tried to explain that this was something special just for him. He did like the fact that we could sit on the stools at the counter and watch them cook which we can't do when we have Taylor. We were about to leave when an older man came and sat beside Brannon and struck up a conversation (only one-sided because Brannon is extremely shy around strangers). The man asked Brannon if he had ever seen someone take his thumb off. (My fear is that it wasn't going to be a trick and that he really had a prosthetic thumb. We are in Waffle House remember.) Well, he performed his trick perfectly much to the astonishment of my little boy. Brannon's eyes kept getting bigger and bigger the closer he got to the separation. He looked at me, back at the man, and then back at me and said, "Mommy, I don't want him to take my thumb off". My child was terrified. Back in the car I spent 5 minutes explaining to him it was just like when Poppy "takes his nose". I think he's not traumatized anymore but we'll see if he wakes up crying tonight about a man taking off his thumb.