Come with meeeeeee to Primaryyyyyy . . . please?

Quarterly Activity on Saturday. We have about forty kids in our Primary. Nine showed up. And one teacher. This started me wondering what we were going to do about the fifty hot dogs I had in the fridge. At my best I could only down about three before I threw up. Of course, this would leave me free to eat three more, so I figured I could probably take care of whatever was left over. Problem solved.

This activity was a Safety Fair. We've had some predators in our neighborhood, and I think I may have mentioned the meth labs and porn addicts, so we thought it might be a good idea to teach the kids some of the things their parents didn't see fit to point out. Like hanging out behind the church building at 11:00 at night with boys when you're an eleven-year-old girl may not be such a great idea. Especially if there's an ex-felon living around the corner who has made his way across the country raping kids and slashing their bodies up.

Anyway. The first phase of our Safety Fair focused on fire safety and being safe inside the house. Firefighters Bob and Joe showed up with their ladder truck and gathered the kids around for a fun and fascinating presentation. F-Bob started off by telling the kids about ten graphic stories of people who had been severely burned and died. One included a guy who ran out of a burning house in his underwear and then went back in to grab some clothes and died from smoke inhalation. That was probably the most mild. Then there were the comments like, "If your clothes catch fire, they'll burn really fast, and your entire body will burn like a torch. So make sure the pot handles are turned in on the stove." Of course there were the skin grafting and burning bodies anecdotes that were, in my opinion, perfectly suited for a bunch of five-year-olds. I was thinking that maybe they could have found someone else to talk to kids, but then he said that he's the one that does all the department presentations for young people.

Not soon enough into his talk, both of their utility belts started to go crazy, beeping and wailing. F-Bob turned it down and kept talking. The belt kept going. F-Joe turned his down slightly and just stood there. Finally F-Bob said, "Well, we have to go. There's a fire." Then he just kept talking. After a while he said in a sort of bored voice, "There's an accident on the freeway. That's about ninety percent of the calls we get down at the station is accidents. American Fork really is a good town as far as fire safety goes. And that's because we talk to so many kids."

At this point I was about to start screaming, "Get out of here! Go drag the people from their burning car!" I could feel the adults getting a little uncomfortable behind me. The kids were just sitting there with their mouths hanging open.

Finally we assured them that we had learned everything we wanted to about fire safety, and sent them on their way.

Phase 2: Bike and outdoor safety. The Primary president, whom I adore, and who loves children very much but gets a little nervous, took the kids in, sat them down, and proceeded to read from a bunch of papers the most horrifying statistics about head injuries, deaths from not wearing seatbelts, kids getting crushed and killed by cars backing out of driveways, etc. My friend sitting next to me in the back said that if this happened to be a nervous day for her daughter, she would have a hard time getting her to climb into a car for the next three days.

The kids started to loosen up at this point, and shout out random stories every time the PP stopped to take a breath and look over her papers for some more chilling facts to read.

"There was this one time? when we were going to the pool? and we had to stop at the railroad tracks because there was a train? and we got tired of waiting? so we just turned around and went to another pool."

"Um, I went swimming with my friends!"

Kids are pretty resilient, I guess. After the gruesome facts petered out, it was time for lunch. They all ran outside with their hot dogs and left them on the grass while they ran races around the building. So after a while we threw all the food away and dragged them back inside. Two bishopric members sat in the kitchen and finished off the other fifteen or so hot dogs that didnt get taken out to sit on the grass. Then they cleaned up the entire kitchen. Love them.

Phase three. My turn to talk about stranger danger, child abuse, drugs, and Internet porn. I think I could really have topped the day off right if I had followed suit with the other presenters, but I chose a little different tack. We should have coordinated better, I guess.

So we're talking about how it's important to tell a trusted adult if anyone touches you in way that makes you uncomfortable, and that only your doctor or parents should touch certain parts of your body, and then only if you need some kind of medical attention.

"One time, my dad pulled my pants down . . ."

I broke out into a cold sweat at this point.

". . . and had to give me a shot in my bum. Because I was sick."

Okay. That's okay. Sometimes your parents have to help you that way in order to make you feel better.

"There was one time when I had worms, and my mom had to check my butt."

Right. Okay. I think we get the idea. On to another topic.

You probably didn't know that all bad guys have mustaches, dark glasses, carry guns, they wear black, and know karate. Among other things. So we talked about stranger danger, which went well I think, except for when they all started trying to shout out their family's code word. I'm yelling, "Don't tell me! You're not supposed to tell!" and they're all going, "I know my family's code word! It's . . ."

So if you're on the Internet and a bad picture comes up, or anything at all makes you uncomfortable, "leave it on the screen and run away." Or "crash and tell." Whatever you think is best.

I guess they had a good time. After we were done they all wanted to stay longer. Now I'm just wondering how I can incorporate some of their comments into the sacrament meeting presentation . . .