Play-Dough Injury

Most of the activities in which my young children participate are fairly innocent and don’t involve much risk of decapitation or other life-threatening injuries. Most of their activities do, however, involve some sort of mess. And it is those messes that bring a sense of danger into our otherwise safe home.

Of all the regularly occurring messes, the one I deal with the best is the Play-Dough mess. This mess is easy on me simply because we have banned it from inside the house and have set up a Play-Dough mess station in the backyard. My youngest daughter, who is almost two, is a certified Play-Dough fanatic. The other day she went outside to the Play-Dough mess station only to discover that she had left her stash uncovered the night before and it was all dried out. Without a moment’s hesitation, she toddled back into the house and tugged on mom’s pant leg before announcing, “Mommy! I need Pay-Dough.” Who could resist that? Moments later, mom was raiding the reserve Play-Dough stash and forking over a brand new doughy mess to our sweet little girl.

Play-Dough seems like an innocent enough activity to the casual observer, but don’t ever let the TSA find out that you have a pile of hot pink dough in your pocket. I learned this week that, given the right amount of sunlight, water, and grimy child hands, Play-Dough can indeed be used as a weapon.

How did I learn this, you ask? Well it all started just before dinner when I took my bare feet out in the yard to light the barbecue. As I stepped out on to the patio, I very astutely noticed that a sharp pain shot up my left leg when I applied my foot to the concrete. Quickly deducing that the pain was originating from the bottom of my foot, I eagerly lifted the offending foot from the ground only to discover a blue and pink swirled rock with a sharp, jagged point protruding from one side laying obnoxiously on the ground. “Rocks aren’t blue and pink,” I keenly said to myself. “This couldn’t possibly be a naturally occurring phenomenon.” Then I leaned in for a closer examination. “Ah-ha!” I announced to no one in particular. “That’s not a rock, that’s a dried clump of Play-Dough!” Fortunately, my reflexes had been quick enough to avoid any serious damage to my foot, but a sharp pain lingered for several minutes before subsiding.

During those moments of lingering pain, I decided to see what the treatment might be for a Play-Dough injury. Using my best sleuthing skills, I flipped open my trusty laptop and typed the words “Play-Dough Injury” into my Google search engine. Expecting to receive feedback from several trustworthy medical sites, I was surprised when the only hits I got were for making edible Play-Dough and tips for removing Play-Dough from a cloth chair. Since my foot was neither edible nor cloth, I decided to accept the pain and wait it out.

As the pain worked its way out of my system, I couldn’t help but smile, for a realization had just hit me. Moments before, I had used the world-wide resources of the Internet (powered by Google) to research the topic of Play-Dough injuries. Not one report of any such injury could be found. I was the first. I alone am the only person to report a real life Play-Dough injury on the Internet. Even as I type this, I can’t wait to post it and see if Google can find my report. Perhaps my experience will help someone else who has dealt with such an injury. Who knows where this could lead. Support groups? Seminars? Book deals? The options are endless. So, if you have a Play-Dough injury story that you would like to share, (or if you are a Hollywood agent) let’s chat.