Easter String Thing

Let's talk about Easter before it's too late, shall we? 

We have an odd tradition in our house.  I'm not sure how it got started, but it's the way things have been done since I was a kid, at least.  I loved it as a kid, but I had no clue what a pain in the butt it is for the adult performing the Easter Bunny duties.

The night before the Easter Bunny comes, each child leaves one of his shoes outside his bedroom door.  The Easter Bunny comes, ties a string to the shoe, and then trails it all over the house.  And I mean all over the house.  Under doors, through the bushes in the backyard, between the rungs of the ladder back chairs... You get the idea.  Easter morning, when everyone is awake, (6:10 AM this year, because my kids have a death wish), each kid follows his string, winding it up as they go, to the end of the line.  Wherever their string ends - their Easter basket is sure to be near.

And here's where the whole thing can go very, very wrong.

It was the Easter of 2007, (I think), and my husband and I had traveled to Idaho to spend Easter with his brother's family.  We had remembered to pack up all the Easter basket paraphernalia; and were thus very proud of ourselves. 

The night before Easter, one of my boys said, "I can't wait for Easter to be here!  I love the string!"  And I then remembered that I had forgotten to bring any string. 

No biggie - I just sent the husband off to buy some.  At 10:00 on a Saturday night.  Of course, the only store that was open was Albertson's, and oddly enough, they don't stock string.  Not even with their Easter wares!  They also did not carry yarn, rope, thread, jump ropes, or anything that could double as string.  But they did have dental floss.  So the husband bought four packages of 100 yards of dental floss and smilingly presented it to me back at the house.

It wasn't string, but it would have to do.  We can't be disappointing the children, now.

The next morning we had church really, really early, and with gobs of people to get ready, we decided to tell the kids that the Easter Bunny would come while we were at church.  I came home between Sacrament Meeting and Sunday School to weave the magic "string" through the house.  (We go to church for three hours every Sunday.  We have awesome attention spans and are very holy.) 

And then everyone came home from church.  Some of the floss wound it's way through the carport, and that idiotic Easter Bunny put some of that floss at about neck level of an average adult.

Oops.

Thing about dental floss is that it isn't very stretchy, and it certainly doesn't cut well without the aid of that metal do-dad on it's packaging.  Also, it's really difficult stuff to see when it's strung across an open space.

My poor sister in law walked through the carport and caught some of that floss right across the throat.

It looked like she had been decapitated.  It bled a little, got really red, and was certainly very sore.  (Sorry Marcy.)

Moral of the story:  Stupid Easter Bunny should never use dental floss in lieu of string. (And take pictures of grotesque injuries.  I wish I had one of Marcy's neck to show you.)