“Here. Touch this.” I opened my eyes to see a set of blurry fingers thrust at my nose. I flinched into the crack in the couch where I was laying.

“Lydia! Hold on. Stop. Get your fingers out of my face please.”

There was a brief struggle. A flailing of arms in the dark. Lydia backed away, but continued.

“Touch it!” She said again. “Touch it and you will be clean all over!”

I blinked around the room. Had I fallen asleep and woken up in some kind of weird prophetic vision? Was this the throne room of God, because it really just looked like my living room.

“Touch it and be clean, Daddy!” She lunged at me again, but I held her at arms length.

“No. I’m not going to touch…” I tried to focus on the object in her fingers. A white goo coated the ends of her fingers. “…that. What is that even?”

She leaned in, rolled her eyes back to look at the ceiling and whispered towards my ear, “It’s. just. bubble gum.”

“What? No. Get that away from me and wash it off your hands.”

“But it’s magic bubble gum! Touch it and be clean all over.”

“No. Touching that will do the exact opposite of making you clean all over. Go wash it off in the bathroom and do not touch anything on the way there.”

Situations like this happen pretty much every 30 seconds in our house.