The Castle and the Poop

This story came up over the weekend and I really need to post it.

When John and I first started dating Patrick was 4 years old. One afternoon we decided to take Patrick to the nearest Burger King to get a milkshake and to let him play in their castle.

It was a beautiful warm day and John and I were sitting, enjoying the sunshine. There were no other kids around and Patrick was in heaven. All of a sudden Patrick came running to us with a horrified look on his face. He had his hands up on either side of his face like the kid in Home Alone.

"MOMMY! OH, MOMMY! I pooped in the castle!"

I was confused at first about what he meant.

"Oh, sweetie...you had an accident in your pants when you were playing in the castle?"

"NO, MOMMY! IN the castle. I pooped IN the castle!"

It then hit me that he had pooped somewhere deep inside the plastic castle at Burger King.

I immediately turned to John and said, "What do we do?"

And like any good father he said, "Let's get out of here!"

But my mommy instincts kicked in and I said there was no way we could just leave it in there for some poor kid to come across.

So...John gathered some napkins and crawled his way into the castle.

A few minutes later he came out with a small parcel and deposited it in the trash can.

He then looked at me and said, "Don't ever tell me I don't love you."

And in that moment I knew this was the man I wanted to marry.

This story has made the rounds in our family. I didn't realize how much until recently when Patrick told Josh he was an annoying jerk Josh looked at him, smugly, and said, "Yeah?...At least I didn't poop in the castle!"