Re: SLIME
That was the subject heading of the email I received from my son’s middle school about a year and a half ago. I was perplexed.
I was familiar with the word “slime.” One might use it in all sorts of contexts, especially in relation to snails, or the sludge found in the corners of showers. But I was confounded as to why the middle school would be sending an e-blast about it.
By Nicole Caccavo Kear, art by Heather Heckel
“Please be advised that the possession or selling of slime is prohibited at school,” the email read, before going on to detail the consequences for slime infractions.
I had so many questions. What kind of slime were we talking about here? And why would a kid want to collect it, take it places and, most inscrutably, sell it? Also, even if they did, why would the school have a formal position on it?
I read the email to my husband, and we laughed about it.
“At the end of the day, it’s just slime,” I chuckled. “What could be so terrible about slime?”
There is an Italian proverb my grandmother is fond of using when I’m laughing about something that’s no laughing matter. “Ridi, ridi, che la mamma ha fatto i gnocchi.” It means, “Laugh, laugh, your mom made gnocchi.” Okay, so it’s one of those lost-in translation kinds of things, but the message is: “Go ahead and laugh, you moron! We’ll see who’s laughing soon.”
It’s an apt proverb to use here as I think of myself a year and a half ago, ignorant about the slippery slope of slime. Laugh, laugh, your kid made slime.
It wasn’t my 7th grade son that succumbed to the slime craze. It was my 4th grade daughter, affectionately known in these pages as Seconda.
“Mom,” she said after school one day, a few weeks after the enigmatic email. “Can I make slime?”
Ahhh, I thought, this mysterious slime again.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because it’s fun,” she answered. Then, sensing that this truthful response wasn’t hugely compelling to a parent, she added: “It’s science! Mixing stuff up.”
The classic parental Achilles Heel – an educational activity that is just as fun for kids as it is enriching. Extra points if it relates to math or science.
“Well,” I said. “How do you make it?”
She explained that it was super easy and there were tons of recipes on the internet – all you needed was glue, shaving cream and Borax.
“You mean, the stuff you clean clothes with?”
She looked at me like I was a headless kangaroo: “How should I know?”
The aspect of laundering Seconda’s responsible for is clothing transport – moving the wet clothes to the dryer and the dry clothes to the folding station (AKA my bed). Considering the percentage of clothes that end up on the floor in the process of transport, I don’t think she’ll be promoted to detergent–dispensing any time soon. So, she doesn’t know Borax from Borat.
“I don’t think you should be playing with Borax,” I said. “It seems dangerous.”
She paused, then said: “Yeah, some kids have been getting chemical burns.”
“WHAT?” I shrieked. It’s unsettling as a neurotic parent when the worst-case-scenario you’ve cooked up ends out being an under-estimation. “If you knew that, why’d you ask me to use it?”
She shrugged. “I forgot.” Then she added. “But don’t worry, because we can use contact lens solution instead.”
“That’s good,” I said, trying to imagine ways that contact solution could harm a child. It had the benefit of being engineered expressly to be put in the eye, so that was a definite plus.
Unable to think of potential bodily harm caused by saline solution, I agreed. That was the beginning of it all. Slime, like a vampire, has to be invited in.
Seconda assured me the process would be easy and she could do it all on her own. I didn’t argue. I am sure there are moms out there who enjoy supervising science experiments but I am not one of them. So I accompanied her to get the supplies and then left her to it.
Within about fifteen minutes, there were disquieting noises coming from the kitchen. It wasn’t beakers exploding, but tempers.
“This is SO dumb!” my daughter yelled. “It DOESN’T WORK!
I walked into the kitchen and gasped. The word “mess” doesn’t come close to describing it. I am reminded of a story I heard, about a Youtube sensation who made a music video using large quantities of chicken hearts. The mess produced was so epic that the cleaning person hired took one look, walked straight out of the house and never came back. It was an unsalvageable mess, one you simply abandon. I think the chicken hearts are still there. This was my reaction upon entering the kitchen after Seconda’s inaugural slime mission. It hadn’t been a science experiment so much as a battle between her and the glue. The glue won. By a landslide.
“Well, that’s the end of that,” I said after the kitchen was cleaned.
I’ll pause as we both laugh at my naivete.
Because, of course, failing to successfully make the slime only intensified my daughter’s yearning to get it right. A few weeks later, she started begging for another shot, taking a different tack. She reasoned that it was an activity we could do together — mother/ daughter bonding time! Mother/ daughter bonding science time! Did she mention she might want to be a neuroscientist when she grew up? Plus, she’d read that playing with slime was very therapeutic. It helped with stress and anxiety.
“What helps with the stress and anxiety caused by the slime, though?” I asked. “That’s what I want to know.”
You don’t need to be Stephen King to put this story together.
The Slime Kraken had been unleashed. Eventually, I thought, this will get boring. After all, there are so many truly fascinating things that get boring so quickly for children; how could this – the combining of glue, shaving cream and contact lens solution – have unending hypnotic appeal? And yet it does. Maybe it’s because there’s limitless varieties of slime – from the obvious (fluffy slime) to the surprising (snow slime) to the nauseating (butter slime). It seems that you can make slime out of virtually anything – provided it is messy, and hard to get off a carpet. I bought my Kindergartener a pack of Model Magic and was glad to see Seconda partake in the art fun. A few minutes later, I saw her kneading her portion of Model Magic into one of her countless slime vats.
“What?” she said when I gave her a look. “It makes super spongey slime.”
Her level of fixation is straight-up King Midas. I wouldn’t be surprised if I caught her trying to turn her sister into slime.
The trouble with slime is, once you get rid of the Borax, it’s hard to point to what’s objectionable about it. Sure, there’s the mess, though this can, with enough rules born of trial-and-error, be contained. Seconda has waged the battle with the glue enough times that she’s able to win it more often than not, and my kitchen doesn’t need to be abandoned like a chicken-heart-strewn-music-video-set.
Sure, there are slime accidents, and I have, on more than one occasion, stepped right into a sticky, gooey pile of glue gunk on my living room floor. Then I’ll banish slime for a while. and that works, for a few weeks . . . maybe months. Banishing always seems like an easy fix but read Romeo and Juliet or Sleeping Beauty and you’ll see how well it works out. Especially when the thing you’re banishing is mess. Because, when dealing with kids, when is there not a mess? Pretty much only when they’re plugged into screens — which is a whole other ball of wax.
Maybe the reason the slime craze is so irritating is that I can’t fathom its appeal.
“Why?” I’ve asked Seconda. “Why do you love slime so much?”
“It’s so satisfying,” is always her reply.
There couldn’t be a more vague description of its allure. I just don’t get it.
Which, I guess, means I’m officially the parent of a tween.
Nicole C. Kear is the author of the chapter book series for children, The Fix-It Friends (Macmillan Kids). You can find more info at fixitfriendsbooks.com
Illustration by Heather Heckel
Nicole Kear
Nicole C. Kear is the author of the memoir Now I See You (St. Martin’s), and many books for children, including a new middle-grade novel, Foreverland (Macmillan Kids).