Kissing Piglet

Everyone knows Winnie the Pooh. Otherwise known as Pooh Bear. I find him curious. A male bear named Winnie, who wears mid-riff shirt and goes around asking if anyone's got honey. Anyway, if you know Winnie you would also know his posse, his entourage. Which includes Piglet. A tiny pink little thing that almost does not resemble a pig at all. But hey, creative licence is there for a reason.

Where am I going with this. Sara loves Winnie the Pooh and his posse. Including Piglet. Don't ask me why. And so, we needed to stock up on some erasers (yes, I do stock up on stationary items). We went to the store and saw a pack that had six erasers, each with various pics of Winnie the Pooh and his friends. It's a no brainer that Sara fished that pack out and held it close to her, worried that someone might pry it away from her. Even though I was worried someone might think she's trying to shoplift the damn erasers.

When we got home and opened the pack, we realised that the erasers have a strawberry scent. At that point, Sara could not believe her luck. Not only could she get her favourite cartoon character erasers, these erasers smell good, too!! She had a hard time choosing which to use first, and after 2 long seconds of careful deliberation, she chose Piglet.

Piglet was gently placed in her pencil case and all is well in the world. Until the next day that is. She came home the next day, saying her friends all went "eeeeeuw" on her because they saw her taking a sniff at the Piglet eraser.

I thought it was a natural reaction since I don't think it's healthy to be sniffing anything, let alone erasers whose origin are suspect. But the thing is, they were giving her the eeeeeuw treatment because the eraser has a picture of Piglet (because apparently ALL kids sniff their scented erasers anyways, did you know?).

Sara attends a private Muslim kindergarten and hence the strong aversion towards anything pig or ham or any derivatives of that animal. According to my young but wise daughter, she told them there was nothing wrong in taking a sniff of her Piglet eraser because it's just an eraser and it's not a real Pig. I smiled when I heard her logic. Good girl, I told her. The commotion in the classroom attracted her teacher's attention and apparently the teacher sided with Sara. And so common sense prevailed and the kids learnt something new that day. That Piglet erasers smell of strawberry. And everyone lived happily ever after. The end.