When my dad was young, his parents went out for the evening, leaving my dad’s older brother in charge. His older brother goes by Jett, so when his parents left, they said, “Okay, Jett, you’re in charge. Just be safe. And whatever you do, don’t give Rock any bubble gum.”
Being a typical older brother, seven years older than my dad, the first thing Jett said after his parents left was, “Hey, Rock, want some bubble gum?”
My dad of course ate it up.
It wasn’t long, though, before my dad started blowing bubbles. And from there, it wasn’t long before my dad blew one so big it covered his whole six-year-old face. And then popped.
He had gum all over. So Jett helped scrape it off his face, his lips, his eyelids, his eyebrows… well, not all off his eyebrows.
See, some of the gum ended up stuck in my dad’s eyebrow, and neither of them could get it out. This was before they new the tricks about ice or whatever.
Panicking, Jett decided just to cut it out. He started with scissors, but that didn’t work so well. So, never one to do just half a job, Jett decided just to shave off the entire eyebrow, getting the gum out for sure that way.
With only one eyebrow, my dad looked pretty conspicuous. It was pretty obvious that something had gone down. What to do? What to do? Jett thought.
Then he had a bright idea. Running into his parent’s room, Jett grabbed an eyebrow pencil from his mom’s drawer, ran back, and then proceeded to draw an eyebrow back onto my dad’s brow.
Of course, when my dad’s parents returned, they totally noticed the missing eyebrow. The shading wasn’t fooling anyone. I guess Jett got in trouble or something. And us kids got a good story out of it.
