cute

There were some tense moments Saturday afternoon at the Washington Square Piggly Wiggly when a 7-year-old boy climbed inside a stuffed-animal grabber machine and remained there for an hour.

Sheboygan Fire Commander Mark Zittel said the fire department was dispatched around 3 p.m. Saturday to the store, 3124 S. Taylor Drive, to rescue the boy from the machine.

The aim of game is to maneuver a grabber-claw to snag a stuffed animal. When a stuffed animal is obtained, the claw releases the toy into a chute.

Zittel said the boy’s father was on a nearby pay phone when the boy quickly scurried into the toy machine through the chute where the toys come out. The boy tried to get out but couldn’t, because the flap on the chute only moves in one direction.

Instead of breaking into the machine, the fire department called a locksmith. While waiting for the locksmith, the fire department moved the machine to the back of the store away from the view of customers.

“It became a viewing circus,” Zittel said.

The Sheboygan Press

I saw some still photos on the news when I woke up and they were hilarious. This kid climbed up into one of those crane thingies and was just crammed in there. They interviewed the kid and he was really shy about it and saying that he'd never do it again.

It's weird. But stuff like this is what makes me fear ever becoming a parent (that and having a kid turn out badly...since bad eggs happen even to good parents sometimes, I think) but at the same time it makes me want to be a parent that much more. I love kids' hijinks, I think they're awesome. "They're" referring to kids and hijinks both ("hijinks" being doubly cool because the idea behind the word is fun and the three dotted letters in a row make for a cool looking word too).

edit -- crap, I thought I had beaten my sources to the pnch on this one, but I didn't. This article, unlike many that I link to, was not stolen from the dailyrotten (not linked to because I know a few readers who would snoop around the site and find some of the stuff they publish...which ain't pretty).