About 100 years ago I sent Jaycie and Max the link to the Charlie the Unicorn 2 video. They loved it and watched it about 38,291 times. That’s no exaggeration. They know it by heart and really love the Flugoos mentioned in the video.

Since then, the Flugoo family has come to live with them. The Flugoos are naughty imaginary fish who like to do all those reckless things that 9 and 10-year-olds think is really funny. Like smear poop on the walls, dance in the back of Ruby while we’re driving down the street, and sneak into movie theaters without paying.

There are four Flugoos — Mr. Flugoo, Mrs. Flugoo, Flugette, and Baby Flugoo,who is the naughtiest.

Whenever I babysat, randomly throughout the day I’d hear “Ut oh Aunt Jodi, the Flugoos are here.” Then either Jaycie or Max would commence to telling me what the Flugoos were doing. Sometimes I’d get a warning, one of them would say “Glub, Glub Aunt Jodi.”

And I would respond, “Glub Glub.” It was a weird kind of call and response.

Since the kids have been in Michigan, I think Jaycie is missing her old Aunt Jodi. She instant messages me just about everyday Usually to tell me it’s my turn on Wordscraper or that she went swimming or that she really likes the Olympics. She is a demanding online chatter. If you tell her you’ll be right back she demands to know what you are leaving and what you will be doing while you are away from the computer.

Today when she instant messaged me she told me that the Flugoos missed me. And even though Baby Flugoo kept running around the hotel with a chainsaw trying to wreck the place, they were thinking of crawling back through the tunnel they dug to Michigan to visit me.

I told her that would be delightful because nobody has smeared poop on my walls in days.