Howard ate the rest his lunch morosely. His life had spun completely out of control. Not only did he look like a toddler, but he was being forced to live a toddler’s life as well. When he finished his meal, Anita wiped his mouth with a napkin and helped him down from the booster chair. She led him into the family room and sat him on the carpet in front of the TV. Instead of turning on the TV however, she went into the other room and came out with a big shopping bag full of boxes. She dumped the boxes out of the bag unceremoniously at his feet and said, “You might as well take them out of the packages yourself, Honeybunch. They’re your toys. Mommy wants to watch a cooking show on TV. You can play there on the carpet until it’s time for your nap.”
Howard looked at the pile of toys at his feet, wondering how he was ever going to pretend to play with them. There was quite a selection to choose from; there was a large mesh bag of building blocks, a wooden train set that would have been more appropriate for a two year old, an assortment of large plastic trucks and cars in bright colors and a large blue circular object with pictures of farm animals on the front and a selector dial, when the spring-loaded cord was pulled, the sound of the indicated animal was emitted by the toy. Howard found the toys depressing. How could she expect him to play with this junk? If she had included a pocket-sized video game, maybe he could have faked a little interest. But this stuff? There was actually an infant’s wheeled bubble ball toy in the group! How young did she expect him to act?
Anita’s voice descended on him like a divine judgement from Olympus, “Play with your toys, Howard. Mommy’s had all the nonsense she’s going to put up with from you today.”
Howard tentatively opened the bag of building blocks and spilled them out on the carpet in front of him. Maybe he could do something with the blocks to make her happy. Then an idea occurred to him. What about that barbeque pit he had planned to build this summer? He could make a model of that. He vaguely remembered the picture in one of Anita’s old cookbooks that he had liked. The author’s name was something like Trader Vic. If he remembered correctly, the pit was long and had two ovens at the end, one of which could be used as a smoker. He remembered the text saying that the design was Chinese in origin. Whatever its origins, it had looked like a good do-it-yourself project for him and he had told himself he would construct it that summer when he had time. Howard sighed. As long as he had to play with something, he might as well use his time to think about his project. The thought that he might never get any bigger never occurred to him. As far as Howard was concerned, his condition was only a temporary setback in a career that was on the rise again. He set to with the blocks, using them to make a scale model of the construction project he had in mind. Soon he was on his hands and knees, looking into every canny of his model to check for potential problems with his design. He tore the model down and rebuilt it several times as new ideas presented themselves.
Howard was totally unaware of the broad smile of maternal approval that Anita beamed down on him while he was engaged with his project. Anita was so pleased that he was adjusting to his new life. She hated to come down on him as hard as she had earlier, but he had to be made to face the truth. She watched him as he crawled back and forth across the carpet on his hands and knees, moving his play blocks infinitesimal amounts and then tearing the whole thing down and starting over. The padding on his cute little tush stuck out in the rear, looking just like diapers on a baby. Occasionally, when he was deep in concentration, a small rivulet of drool would escape his lips and run down his chin to fall on his project unnoticed. He looked adorable! She almost left her seat on the couch to go over and pick him up so she could sit him on her lap and bounce him on her knee, but she knew that he would be disappointed by being taken away from his toys and would probably start crying. At one point, he sat on his bottom with his feet on either side of his little building and stared at it in a parody of deep concentration. She watched in delight as his thumb crept up the side of his face and inserted itself into his mouth. He never noticed his cheeks begin to suck as he considered his project. Anita was enchanted. If she could retrain him to talk like a toddler, no one would ever suspect he had once been a fully grown man.